


The Red Queen

by bikadoo_2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:49:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikadoo_2/pseuds/bikadoo_2
Summary: “You shall have it all, Jon. A white Queen, a red Queen, and a child with the name Stark. Isn’t that what you wanted?” “Not like this.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Surprised? So am I.

They give him a crown, name him a King, and expect her to smile. 

 _King in the North._  

Sansa had been sitting beside him when Lady Lyanna had proclaimed him a King. Stuck within her chair, and forced to bear witness to Jon Snow claiming a title that had killed its last inhabitant, she had worn a smile and acted as they had expected her to. She always did, of course; act as they wanted her to. She was a lady, after all, and ladies cannot cry when they wish to.

When Sansa had escaped Kings Landing, she had thought that she would never have to pretend again. But then that had been before Alayne, and before they had forced a cloak of flayed skin onto her shoulders. 

She doesn’t know when it dawned on her, but after everything that they had forced upon her, Sansa has come to realise that she will never be free with her emotions. She will never be free to speak as she likes, for the fear that she will be called insolent. She will never be free to command as she should, and she will never be free to scream as she so wants to, when she listens to them chant _King in the North_.

For a moment, she wishes for Jon to deny the crown and offer it to her, but Sansa knows that the North would never follow a Queen they didn’t anoint themselves. And so she sits silently, and meets Lord Baelish’s’ eye, for she can already hear the cockiness to his words as he whispers, _I told you so,_ over and over again.

Sansa wants to scream. 

Sansa wants to educate the little Mormont, and tell her that while there may be no _male_ Starks, there is still a female Stark and that should be enough. Instead, they were going to follow a Snow – her father’s bastard whom her mother had looked down on and whose very presence had caused her family so much pain. 

_I’m sorry, mother._

But Sansa cannot feel the hatred her Lady mother would have felt at the sight of Jon, for Sansa knows there is no cruelness in him. While they had been strangers that day at Castle Black, and still Sansa thought them to be just as oblivious to each other now, she knew that Jon Snow was too honourable to ever think to want a crown for himself.

Sansa wants to scream, and cry, and tell them all that she is still a Stark, but she knows they will call her Lady Bolton, or worse, Lady Lannister.

Sansa wants to scream, and tell them that without her mind, they would all have perished to Ramsays army and they owe her more than a simple crown.

But she cannot scream, or cry, or plead for something as stupid as a crown, because she is a Lady and Ladys do not get what they want. 

So she smiles, and waits for the feast to be done with, before she retreats to her chambers – the Lords chambers – that Jon so insisted upon her having, before she tastes salt on her lips and allows her small frame to wrack with sobs.  

She expects that the King shall want the Lord chambers soon, and so Sansa seeks the King the next day. She has already arranged for her things, what little she did have, to be moved to her lady mother’s chambers, and so she cannot understand why Jon refuses when she raises the issue. 

“No.”

“Your Grace …” Sansa begins, unsure.

Jon rolls his eyes, unnerved at the use of the title as he adjusted his jerkin. “It’s Jon, Sansa, not- not _that._ The room is yours, as you are still the Lady of Winterfell. I won’t take that from you too.” 

Sansa is shocked at his words, but she can say nothing but insist that he take the Lords chambers once more.

“No, Sansa,” Jon says, and suddenly, there is the Lord Commander – the King – standing before her. He stands tall, and his voice, which so often held hesitation in its warmth, was filled with certainty. “The room is yours, and I won’t talk about it anymore.” 

Sansa looks to the floor, her jaw locking as she says, “As you wish, your Grace.” 

“Jon,” He corrects her, his grey eyes boring into her. 

Sansa decides, then, that she cannot understand this man that she thought her half-brother, and she didn’t think she ever would.

_He shuns power while others lust after it, and acts as if that is not strange?_

She thinks of Lord Baelish, and how he whispered that _chaos is a ladder._ She thinks of Cersei Lannister, and how she looked to the Iron throne with lust in her eyes. She thinks of Tyrion Lannister, and how he clutched onto the pin of the hand of the King. She thinks of Joffrey Baratheon, and how his guards had beaten her. She thinks of her Lord father, and how his head rested on the spike. 

 _I have seen what men do for power, and what power does to men._  

It is at dinner, that night, that surprises her once more by saying, “You only need ask, and I will give the crown to you.”

Sansa’s head snaps up, her goblet an inch from her lips as she looks to Jon in surprise. He has been quiet most of the evening, but she had simply thought the burden of the battle was still weighing heavily on him. “I- pardon, Jon?”

“ _You_ brought the Vale to the battle. _You_ secured the castle. _You_ warned me against Ramsay,” Jon says, his grey eyes as hard as stone as he shifts in the Lords chair, ever uncomfortable. “ _I_ ignored your instruction. _I_ ignored your warnings. _I_ am bastard born-“ 

“Jon-“ 

“No, Sansa, wait,” Jon says, holding his hand up as he shakes his head. “They have stolen your right, and it isn’t fair. I wouldn’t have you hating me because of it, so if you wish, I can give it over to you- I- I _will_ give it over to you.”

Sansa grasps Jon’s hand, and shakes her head at his silliness. _He offers me a crown, but how can he not realise that they would never accept a girl they did not choose?_ “Only death can give a crown, Jon, and I have lost too many to ever want for it like that.” 

Jon’s brow furrows, before he sighs. “But its-“

“It’s what they have chosen,” Sansa says with a shrug, for she can do nothing else if she does not want to crumble, “and who am I to say they cannot choose you?”

 _The heir to Winterfell,_ she wants to scream, but she does not. 

“Sansa Stark, last surviving heir to Winterfell, daughter of Eddard and Catelyn,” Jon says, his expression incensed as he defended her claim. Something burned deep within her at his words, and Sansa couldn’t help but feel a burning for him; the gratitude that flowed through her at his words like the river of her mother’s family, “who has a better claim than a bastard. It is not fair.”

Sansa wants to agree, and wretch the invisible crown from his head. Sansa wants to hear Queen leave the lips of all that come before her, for she deserves the crown.

“Maybe,” Sansa says with a nod, seeing a glimpse as to why the Northern lords had chosen Jon over her. “And no, it’s not fair. But fairness is not something girls know, and that is the way of things.” 

“It’s wrong.” 

“Many things are wrong,” Sansa says, looking over the hall as she remembers the flayed sigil that had been hung here days before, “but we’re Starks, and we endure.” 

 _We’re Starks,_ she thinks, _and we do not bicker over a crown._  

But he was not a Stark.

Howland Reed came on the second moon they had retaken Winterfell, and with it, he brings news. 

Sansa watches as he explains a tale that seems like something from a song; a winter maiden with blue roses in her hair, and a dragon prince who helped her run far from her cage. If Sansa was still a girl, she would think it horribly romantic, but she is not a girl any longer and so she cannot think it romantic. _For how many died because Rhaegar Targaryen loved Lyanna Stark? For how can I think it romantic, when they had loved each other and the world had burned for it?_

And Sansa cannot think it anything but horrific, when she watches Jon Snow be told he is not the bastard son of Eddard Stark, but the trueborn son of her Aunt and a dragon prince. 

Jon offers no words to Howland Reed, and instead retreats to the Godswood. Sansa entertains their banner man as best she can, before she too goes to the Godswood and kneels before the white tree. 

“It does not matter,” Sansa says, her hands coming to grasp her brothers – _cousins –_ hand. _“_ It changes nothing.” 

Even as she says the words, she can taste their acidity. 

“It changes everything,” Jon whispers, his voice raw as his grey eyes harden with conflict. “I was called a bastard, and hated for it, hated for what he did, and _I_ bore _his_ shame and now I find out that my mother was just a stupid girl who didn’t want to do her duty and my _father_ ,” Jon bites out, a sob escaping him, “is nothing but a dishonourable corpse who left his wife, and his children, all for a girl. I could bear the shame of being a bastard, if it was Ned Stark. But- but-” 

“Rhaegar Targaryen may have fathered you, but you are my father’s son,” Sansa says, pressing a kiss to his hand, “and when I saw you that day at Castle Black, I thought I was looking at my Lord father and gods, Jon, I nearly wept for I hadn’t seen him in so long and- and I had forgotten what he looked like. You are as honourable as he was, you are everything he was, and you are nothing like them.”

Jon pulls his hands from her, and Sansa feels cold, her own tears pouring over her cheeks. 

“Go,” Jon says, his eyes returning the weirwood. “I need to be alone.” 

Sansa does not argue, for she knew grief and grief was as lonely as death was.

They do not speak for days, but when he is ready, he finds her in her chamber, and offers her the crown once more. 

“I am no Stark,” Jon says, but not even his words can tear Sansa’s eyes from her embroidery. 

“No,” Sansa agrees, her finger coming to trace the red eyes of the white wolf that she had stitched, “nor a Snow, it would seem. You’re a Targaryen – a dragon.” 

Jon looks down, hurt filling his features, before a laugh bursts from Sansa’s lips and she feels horridly bad for her jape. “Jon, I am jesting.” 

“I have no claim to the crown,” Jon says, ignoring her jest as he shakes his head. 

Sansa can’t help but smile. “You never did. A bastard has no right to a crown, if we are talking about technicalities.”

“But I was Eddard Starks bastard then,” Jon says, meeting her eyes, “I had Stark blood-“

“And that has not changed,” Sansa says, shaking her head as she sets her embroidery to the side and stands. “You are still half Stark, but you’re my cousin now, whatever that may mean.” 

“Sansa …” Jon begins, exasperated before Sansa holds her hand up. 

“Do you want the truth, Jon?” 

“Always.”

Sansa moves to step in front of him, before she says, “When they called you King in the North, I wanted to scream and tell them why a bastard should never be their King. I wanted to educate them about inheritance, and about rights, and I wanted to rip the invisible crown from your head and place it on mine. For if we are talking about rights, then by all means, you have no right to the crown you wear. But they did not choose me, Jon – they chose you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything-“ 

“That means _everything_!” Sansa snaps, incensed that he would argue anything else. “You are who they have chosen, and I have been forsaken. Accept it, Jon.” 

“I’m going to write to our banner men, and tell them-“ 

Sansa eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “You will do _no_ such thing.”

“I have to!” Jon snaps, throwing his hands up in frustration and Sansa can’t help but flinch. Jon looks to his hand with guilt, before an apology flies from his lips, “I’m sorry, Sansa, I wasn’t thinking.” 

“It’s alright,” She whispers, hiding her trembling hands in the skirts of her gown for it _wasn’t_ alright. 

“I can’t lie to them,” Jon says, shaking his head. “I can’t let them believe that I’m their Lords son.” 

“Father lied to them in the first place,” Sansa says. “Eddard Stark called you son for the whole of the North to see, and just because some crannogman comes and says you didn’t come from his seed does not mean it is your lie. It isn’t. If you tell them, they will-“

“-name you as their Queen,” Jon rationalises.

“And then demand that I marry so my husband can rule!” Sansa snaps, shaking her head in exasperation. “Gods, Jon, do you not think? Are you that blind to think they would ever let a girl rule? I have had the misfortune of being born a girl, which to the North means nothing to the lands which are mine by right. Do you not think I want the crown? I am the rightful Queen of the North, and they gave my crown to someone they thought a bastard. Is it so bad, to be ruled by a woman? Is it so bad, to refuse your Queen just because she is a girl? I cannot rule a Kingdom which has refused me. If you write to the bannerman, and proclaim me as the Queen, it would only mean that I would be married before the moons end and- and I can’t marry again, not after-“

Jon wraps her in his arms, and she can taste salt on her lips as she shivers through her sobs. She didn’t even realise she had begun to weep, but Sansa was not immune to the reality of what they would if she were to become Queen. They would place the crown atop her hair of red, and then force her legs apart and place a man there to rule for her. Sansa cannot marry again, that she is sure of; she has no desire to ever be _touched_ again let alone to marry. “Do not make me marry again, Jon, do not ask that of me.” 

“I won’t,” Jon says, “I couldn’t.” 

“You’re a good King,” Sansa whispers into his chest, and she wonders how she could have ever wanted a crown that seemed to poison each person that wore it. “Please, please, just be King.” 

For she was not a Lannister, or a Bolton, or a Targaryen who clung to power with dying, bloodied hands – she was a Stark, whose loyalty was to her blood. 

“Okay.” Jon nods, his hands awkwardly coming to her hair. “For you.”  

 

* * *

 

 

Winterfell is a ruin, but Sansa is glad Jon is there to help rebuild it.

They spend their days apart, but they find each other in the quiet moments. Between Jon’s construction of the southern gate, and Sansa attending to the wounded, they barely have time for words to be exchanged, but they share lunch when time permits or sometimes, Sansa finds herself watching Jon from the balcony, with a wine skin in her hand and a pouch of dried fruit in her other. 

It is little moments such as those that they find themselves talking of what awaits them; the cold winter that has fallen, and the news that the Lannister’s still hold the South.

It is on their third moon that Sansa spies one of the boys from winter town with a bow in his hands, shooting at a target, and she feels like she is watching a dream. She can almost imagine that it is Bran, before he had fallen, with the boy’s brown hair and stature. She hasn’t seen Bran since he was a boy, but now, Sansa thinks, he must be as tall as Robb was. _If he could stand._

But the boy is not Bran, and Sansa finds herself as cold as the snow that lines the ground as he turns and smiles to his friends. _Not Bran,_ she tells herself over and over again as she tried to rid herself of the image. _He is not Bran._ Bran is amongst dreams of the past, and if she thinks to much of how she cannot truly remember his smile, or the sound of his voice, Sansa is sure she will be ruined with sorrow. 

Sansa glances over her shoulder at those on the balcony, and tries to ignore the ache in her chest, but ignoring pain was not something Sansa Stark did well. 

As she walks the balcony, she remembers how Ramsays whore had held the bow, preventing her from leaving, and suddenly Sansa is consumed with fear, wondering when will be the next time she will be at the mercy of someone’s weapon. 

 _When did my home become my cage,_ she wonders, _when did all that brought me joy became all that brought me pain?_  

And so she finds Jon. 

He is in his solar, his furs over his seat as he tends to the fire. He has removed his jerkin, and so Sansa can see a flash of chest hair from his gaping tunic. Jon looks up when she enters, confusion consuming his face before the words pour out of her, “I want you to teach me how to protect myself.”

Sansa knows it is a strange question – at least a strange question for _her_ to be asking – and she can see it from the way Jon looks to her.

“What?” 

 _Pardon,_ she wants to correct him.

Suddenly Sansa feels a foolishness come over her, and her eyes drop to the floor as she remembers the words from Cersei Lannister. _Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon. The best ones between your legs._

“I-“ Sansa breaks off, ringing her hands together in nervousness. “We are not safe. It has been four moons, but I can feel winter coming.” 

“Winter is here.” 

“Not the snow, Jon,” Sansa snaps, her eyes narrowing. “I- I know you will think it ridiculous, but I need to know how to protect myself should anything happen.”

“You have an entire army to protect you,” Jon reminds her, his grey eyes holding his confusion as he stood. But she wishes to remind him that it is not _their_ army – that it is his, and she is nothing but the Lady of Winterfell. _And an army has not saved a Stark before._ “Has something happened? Has someone touched you?” 

Sansa shakes her head, saying, “No, no, nothing like … _that_.” 

Sansa can still not speak of what Ramsay did to her, and sometimes she wishes she can. Sometimes, beneath her furs at night, she yearns to tell the entire world what she had survived so that perhaps they would not think her as weak as they did. For she was no little bird; she was a wolf, and the world needed to know so. 

 _If Arya was here, everyone would see that she was a wolf. When they look at me, they see a fish; a girl sent to Kings Landing who loved silk skirts and jewels. They think I am made of glass, when I am made of steel. They think I am the girl who left, rather than the woman who survived. They think my skin is porcelain, when it is nothing but scarred._

“Then why the need?” Jon asks, motioning for her to sit. “I seem to remember you hated swords, and archery, and the yard, especially when Arya used to find her way there.” 

“I’ve changed,” Sansa says simply, shaking her head as she refused his offer. 

“Yes,” Jon says, nodding as his brows knit together. “I know.” 

They stand in silence for a moment, with Jon’s eyes meeting hers. In those grey eyes of his, there is something burning for her – something she cannot name and something she cannot truly see. She thinks it might be pride, but there is something to the way he is looking at her that bears no question as to why his eye hold hers. “What would you have me teach you?” 

Sansa can’t contain her shock. “You’ll do it?” 

“I can’t have you feeling unsafe,” Jon says with a shrug. “If you need a dagger to do so, then so be it.”

It is not a dagger she finds she can wield, but a bow and arrow. She is hopeless at it, and Sansa cannot help but feel infuriated at it. The bow is too long in her arms, and she has little to no strength. Sansa has always been good at the things she does, whether it be embroidery or language or even dancing. And yet this seemed to be the one thing that Arya bested her in.

Jon cannot hold in his laughter after her third day of failure, and she turns on him, her eyes narrowing. “It is not funny, Jon!”

But still he laughs. 

Her cheeks burn, and Sansa feels the desperate need to hit him, but she can’t – not when she has the leather guard around her fingers. Sansa thinks of Arya then, and what she would do if Jon was laughing at her. _Stop it, stupid,_ she could almost hear her sister proclaiming, before shooting the arrow at the brother she had always loved the most.

But Sansa could not do that, for she was not Arya. 

So instead, she does what Sansa Stark has always done, and ignores him. _I am not porcelain, nor ivory. I am steel. Let him laugh, for I am winter and winter bows to no one._

She does not get much better, but within the next sennight, she improves – enough to finally hit the target. She imagines it is Cersei’s face, as she imagines it is Ramsays with the next arrow. There is little time to practice her archery, for she is the Lady of Winterfell and Winterfell comes before her wants, so she improves slowly. 

Sansa is practicing before dawn one morning when Jon finds her. She is wrapped in her furs, but her eyes are heavy from her exhaustion. The night prior had been spent in a sweat, with dreams of Ramsays hands preventing her from the peace his death should have assured her. 

“Your stance is wrong.” 

Sansa looks over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the sight of him. “Oh? It is the stance you showed me.” 

Jon nods, before shaking his head as he moves towards her. “You’re leaning on your left foot too much. You need balance.” 

Sansa looks to her left foot, and shifts it slightly. “Like this?”

“Yes,” Jon says, before he puts his hands on her shoulders and moves her off balance. “You’re tensing when you pull back. If someone comes for you, you will not have time to aim, Sansa.” 

“But-“ 

Jon’s breath fanned over her neck as he sighs, “It is why you must be quick. Pull back, and release.”

Sansa looks over her shoulder, and meets his eyes as she pulls back the arrow, and releases. 

It misses.

“You do have to look at the target, Sansa,” Jon chuckles, and she rolls her eyes. 

“I was making a point.” 

“Make it whilst looking at the target.” 

This time she pulls back, and releases without any hesitation. It hits the target steadily, and Sansa cannot help the delighted smile that bursts onto her face. 

“There,” Jon says with a nod, his warmth like the sun on this winter morn, “you can kill someone now.”

Sansa’s eyes snap to his, and she drops her bow onto the ground. “I have already killed someone.” 

There is no fear in his eyes when he replies. Only pity. “I know.”

“Do you hate me for it?” Sansa asks, feeling like a child. 

Jon shakes his head, his grey eyes so like her father’s then that she feels she could burst. “I could never hate you Sansa.” 

 _That is what they all say._  

 

* * *

 

It is night, after they have taken their dinner in Jon’s solar, that they talk of what once was. 

“Mother was so wroth, gods,” Sansa laughs, the cup at her lips as she thinks of how her mother had screamed. “I believe Robbs ears were ringing for weeks after she punished him.” 

Jon chuckles. “I know. I was so sure she was going to get him to belt us.” 

 _Him_ , Sansa thinks. Whenever they speak of him, Jon refers to their father as ‘him’. Sansa knows he feels strange, to know that the father had had known was not actually his father at all.   

“Father was so angry,” Sansa laughs, shaking her head as she looks to where Jon sits. “I wish I could speak of father more than I do, but whenever I think of him I grow sad.” 

“He would not wish you to grow sad,” Jon murmurs, looking to the fire. “He loved you, Sansa.”

“And I repaid that love with betrayal,” Sansa murmurs, narrowing her eyes. “I went to the Queen, Jon, when father told us to leave. I told her of what father planned, and she chained him.” 

“Sansa,” Jon says, his grey eyes boring into hers as pity crosses his face. “Sansa, you were a child.”

“A child who knew better,” Sansa says, looking into the fire. “A child who got her father’s head impaled on a spike.” 

“Joffrey Lannister impaled Lord Starks head on a spike,” Jon snaps. “Not a child of ten and three.” 

“But I didn’t help,” Sansa says. “In fact, Joffrey promised me mercy. For all that my late husband was cruel, at least he didn’t pretend to be anything but the monster he was. Joffrey dressed up in cloaks of gold, and pretended to be a prince from the songs, and made me love him before he killed my father because it pleased him. And then after it was all done, and his head was removed from his body, Joffrey took me to the barracks and made me look at his head.” 

“I wanted to kill him,” Jon murmurs. “I dreamt of it, actually. I dreamt of killing him, again and again, for taking everything. But I couldn’t, because I was a man of the Nights Watch, and they killed me for that.” 

Sansa chuckles, despite herself. “But we are alive, and so many are dead. We have to live for them.” 

Sansa takes a sip from her cup, before she remembers what Jon said. “Jon, just because Lord Reed has told you a story, a truth, does not make Father any less yours.” 

“It makes him _very_ less mine,” Jon mumbles, taking a swig.

Sansa catches Jon’s hand in his, and she shakes her head. “You are still family, Jon. You are still a Stark.” 

“No,” Jon says, his eyes burning with something Sansa couldn’t name as his hand tightens on hers. “I am a Snow.” 

It is the next day, when Sansa is asked to sing, that she sees his gaze change. 

“What shall I sing?” Sansa asks, her cheeks warm from the wine and her hands twitching at the harp that had been salvaged.

It is Tormund Giantsbane that chortles through his drink, “The song of the First Men, Lady Stark!” 

The wildlings look to their Lady with anticipation, and ready judgement, but Sansa is of the North. When babes of the South learnt of tales of knights and songs of flowers, her father whispered the words of the First Men. 

“As you wish.”

She sings as she always does – with her eyes closed, and her fingers at the harp. She remembers the words, and hopes that her tongue does not twist on the dialect.  

“ _Gur e m' anam is m' eudail_

_chaidh an-dè do Ghleann Garadh:_

_fear na gruaig' mar an t-òr_

_is na pòig air bhlas meala…”_  

She sings of her love, and a man with hair like gold and kisses that taste of honey. And when her voice sings it’s final tune, of love in snow and endings that seem to hopeful, she finds his eyes on her.

And they are burning. 

 

* * *

 

 

When she spots Jon watching her, Sansa feels fire in her stomach. 

Her shoulder is sore from her training, and her skin is flushed from the exertion of the bow, but when she sees Jon staring, Sansa cannot help but raise her hand in a wave. He is accompanied by Ser Davos, and Tormund, who, despite her gift of a tunic and breeches, still wore the furs the free folk always seemed to dress in. 

Jon is dressed in his black furs, and stands tall against the white blanket of snow that layers the ground. Sansa supposes he is still not accustomed to the life of a free man, where no vows bind him, except for the binds of the crown he wore, but still he wears black like a man of the Nights watch and she wonders if he is still in mourning.

 _If I dressed to honour the state of my grief, I would never see colour,_ Sansa thinks as she turns away from the sight of Jon and his men, and back to her target. 

 _Pull,_ Sansa thinks as she pulls her arm back, and ignores the pain in her shoulder, _and loose._

It hits barely outside the eye of the target, and Sansa smiles – almost jumping in delight at the sight of such a success. Sansa had been at it for weeks, and still she had not proven to be good at the bow, but at least now, she can see the fruits of her labours. Arya may have thought she took to the needle with no effort, but Sansa had never had such a magic in her touch. 

“A good shot, my lady!” Ser Davos calls, and Sansa turns to see the men staring at her. But it is Jon’s eyes of stone that she finds, and she shifts uncomfortably beneath the way they gaze at her. 

She has noticed the way Jon looks to her, but she does not like to think of it – to think of the burning gazes, and the hungry stares – for if she thinks anything of it, she wonders if she should call herself Cersei and he Jaime. _He may be a Targaryen,_ Sansa thinks as she turns away from him, feeling her skin crawl with the wrongness of his gaze, _but I am a wolf, and wolves do not take to each other._

“It will do,” Sansa says, going to pull the arrow from target. “For now, at least.”

“It is good,” Jon says from behind her, and his voice scares her. 

She turns, her eyes wide as she clutches the arrow in her hands. “Your grace, you scared me.” 

“Sorry,” Jon mumbles, reminding her all too much of the boy that had left long ago. “Are you well, Sansa?”

He asks her that, very often.

When he sees her, he asks for her health. And when she tells him of her health, he asks how her sleep is. And when she tells him of her sleep, he asks of how her dreams are. Sometimes Sansa wonders if Jon thinks her to be a ghost, and his constant questions are the ways in which he knows she is real. _For I know how it is,_ Sansa thinks, _to be the only living thing in a graveyard of ghosts._

“Quite,” Sansa says, looking up to his face. There is a frown on his lips, and Sansa wonders if he there is never not a frown on his lips. _When I speak, he smiles,_ she thinks, feeling her cheeks warm beneath the intensity of his stone gaze. “And you, my King?” 

“Jon,” He corrects her, as he always does. “I am well. There was a raven from the Wall this morning.” 

Sansa steps forward, looking into his solemn face. “What did it say?” 

“That I must leave soon,” Jon confides, taking the arrow from her hands and grimacing. “Seems we’ve had enough peace.” 

Sansa laughs, despite herself, and finds that Jon is smiling too. Her heart surges in her chest, and her skin warms beneath her gaze, and she wonders if this is what it means to be on fire. 

But then as she hears his laugh, and feels the fire burning deep within the depths of herself, the shame she feels becomes a tsunami and she wonders if her hair shall go from red to golden to white.

Sansa is drunk before the moon is in the sky, and she cannot help but laugh. 

Tormund had whispered the wonders of fermented goats milk, and had slipped some in her goblet without her knowledge. When Jon had noticed, he was so wroth Sansa thought he would burst from how he barked at the wildling leader. 

Sansa dances with the men, and the music is so loud she fears her ears may burst. Her gown of green swishes at her feet, and Sansa can feel Jon’s eyes on her as she is twirled by Lady Brienne’s squire.   

While the air grows cold, Sansa feels the heart of the hearths against her skin and she knows she must be as red as her hair. 

“Are you enjoying yourself, my lady?” Lady Brienne asks as she sits down, and Sansa nods. 

“My mother used to love music in the Grand Hall,” Sansa says, grinning as she pushes the stray hairs from her face. She grows sad then, thinking about the red haired woman who once brushed her hair. _They cut her throat to the bone, and threw her body in the river,_ Sansa thinks, her chest tightening, _and I had loved her._   

“Your mother would have loved seeing you dance, my lady,” Brienne says quietly, and Sansa looks to her knight.

“My mother would be alive if the Freys had not cut her throat,” She says, her tongue loose and her guards down. “But she is not, and so she cannot see me dance.” 

Sansa looks away from her knight, and to her King – her throat tightening as she sees Jon staring at her. Standing from her seat, Sansa walks to Jon and sits by his side. “Jon,” She says quietly, “you won’t dance?” 

“The poor feet of Winterfell’s ladies do not deserve to be bludgeoned by mine,” Jon says, his gaze not leaving hers. 

“Excuses,” Sansa says with a roll of her eyes. “You must dance, Jon – you are _King!_ ” 

Jon chuckles at the Lady of Winterfell, his eyes full of warmth for her – a warmth that seemed to burn for her. “A crown has not changed my dancing skills.” 

“But you have to dance with me,” Sansa laughs, standing and offering him her hand. “Please?”

Sansa thinks he will refuse, but his eyes go to her hand before they meet her eyes again. The way he looks at her seems almost uncomfortable in that moment, for his gaze is burning and Sansa feels like the wall beneath the heat of dragon fire. “Please, Jon.”

Jon is right, when he says that he is not a good dancer, but Sansa does not care – not when he is twirling her around the floor of the Great Hall. She almost trips two times, for Jon cannot keep his feet in the correct positions, but she does not care, for she is laughing so hard she feels her sides ache. 

Those in the Great Hall watch the King, and his Lady of Winterfell dance, some with smiles and others with warm gazes. It has been a long time since these walls have seen happiness, or heard laughter, and so they watch the King, and his Lady of Winterfell with hope for the times ahead. 

Jon pleads sore feet when he stumbles for the second time, and Sansa allows him a break when he escorts her back to her seat. “Ser Davos says you received a raven today.” 

“Jon-“ 

“I thought you were not spying on me?” Sansa asks, taking a sip of her wine as she finds Ser Davos across the hall. _I am the Lady of this castle, and they think to spy on me?_

“Sansa, we are not,” Jon says, stubborn. “We would never spy on you. But I thought you were not writing to Lord Baelish-“ 

“I am not,” Sansa snaps. “Lord Baelish writes to me, and I simply respond.” 

“I do not think it’s wise to be writing to him,” Jon murmurs, and Sansa purses her lips. 

“I do not think many things wise, and yet you do them all the same,” Sansa snaps. “I write Lord Baelish to appease a powerful ally – he has declared for the North, and the Vale is under his command. I do not wish to alienate him, or to make him think I do not wish for his attentions.”

“So you’re allowing him to court you?” Jon asks, angered. “You’re using his affection for you to win an ally?” 

“I’ve done it before,” Sansa hisses, “and I shall do it again, if need be. You think because we have Winterfell back, it means that our enemies are gone. But our enemies are lining up and making an army, and while you sit the throne I won for you, I am winning this war. So do not question my intent with Lord Baelish, for I have dealt with worse monsters than a mockingbird from the fingers.” 

Sansa goes to stand up, but Jon’s hand locks down on hers, and forces her to her seat. “I have not dismissed you, Lady Stark.” 

“This is my castle,” Sansa snaps, “and you are simply living within it. Goodnight, your grace.” 

Sansa flees from the hall with her head high, and her back straight, for she is a Stark, and the North is hers, and they will not see her tears. 

She slams the door to her chambers, heaving with anger. She feels the fury scorching over her skin, she wonders if this is what it means to be burned by a dragon.   

The door opens, and Jon is standing there, glorious in his anger. 

“Leave,” Sansa spits, outraged that he would dare come here after how he had treated her. “Leave, now.” 

But he does not. 

Jon crossed the room quickly, and suddenly she is in his arms, and his lips are on hers. He is a fire that she has never felt, and as his lips claim hers, she finds herself in an abyss of lust. His touch are flames to her skin, and she finds herself gasping as he pushes her to her wall. 

“Gods, Sansa, gods,” He whispers against her skin, and she knows, now, why lovers destroy the world. For if she was fighting for this fire, she too would let the world burn to keep it. 

As his lips find hers, Sansa thinks of Lyanna Stark and how she climbed atop Rhaegar Targaryen’s horse. 

His hands are on her chest, are on her bodice, are pulling at her laces, and she cannot think of stopping him. All she can simply do is whisper his name as his fingers unlace her bodice, and she spills out – her sheer shift becoming seen to him. 

She has not been so naked in front of a man in so long, but before it was in front of a monster and now it is in front of Jon. 

 _Jon._

_What am I doing?_

“Jon,” Sansa says, her cheeks flushing as her hands go to cover herself. “Jon.” 

And then he is away from her, and his hands are trembling. 

He says her name in a daze, before he turns and flees, leaving Sansa on fire. 

The King sends a note with his apologies, before he rides to Last Hearth before the sun has risen. 

 _I should not have acted in such an improper manner. Forgive me._

Sansa clutches the note, and hides her tears behind her hands, before she dresses and acts as the Lady of Winterfell should. 

She receives a letter two weeks later, and she reads Lord Baelish’s letter with pursed lips.

 _Queens are in every corner now, Lady Stark. A Queen of dragons, a Queen of lions, and a Queen of wolves, though your King brother would not call you such. But how many crowns can these lands wear, before it all goes up in flames?_

Word of a fleet of a thousand ships comes in the following weeks, and Sansa wonders, as she watches the masons rebuild the southern gate, how long this castle will stand upright.

Jon rides in with his party two weeks after Sansa learns of the dragon Queen, and she stands in the courtyard awaiting him, dressed in furs of wolf pelts and a gown of blue. It is the finest thing she owns now – a gown made from her own hand. He looks like a King, though he has no crown, and Sansa burns for him as soon as she sees him and she cannot help but yearn for what he had apologised for.

She kneels before him, and she wonders if he knows how much she has ached for him. 

She can hear the sound of his boots against the dirt as he dismounts, and walks towards her, but she doesn’t look to him for he is her King. But he has gone from brother, to cousin, to King to dragon, and she does not know what to think of him anymore – not when his lips taste like happiness and his arms have been all she has yearned for in his absence. 

“My King,” Sansa murmurs, and she can feel his hand grasping hers before he pulls her up.

And suddenly, _suddenly,_ those Stark grey orbs that had haunted her were staring at her, and she thinks of her father, and Arya, and all that she has lost. _He is all I have, and even he will not look at me._

“Lady Stark,” Jon murmurs, and his eyes, haunted, look to the ground. 

 _He brings bad news,_ she thinks, her stomach dropping as he leads her inside, for she cannot bear any worse news. 

“Are you well?” Jon asks, as soon as they are in his chambers. 

Sansa cannot stand still, for she remembers the taste of his lips like she can remember the warmth of Summer. 

“Yes,” Sansa says, wringing her hands together as she watches him remove his muddied gloves. “You have news?” 

“We went to Castle Black,” He says, and Sansa feels pain knowing he lied to her. 

Her voice is accusatory as she snaps, “You said you were going to Last Hearth?” 

“We were,” Jon explains, catching her eyes before awkwardly shifting away from her. “The Lord Commander sent a raven. We don’t have much time left, it seems.” 

“Oh, gods,” Sansa whispers, her hand coming to her lips. “They’re coming?”

It is like a tale of Old Nans, but this time, it is not fabled or the stuff of old; it is a nightmare that haunts Sansa’s days and she wonders how long she truly has left.

Jon nods, still not looking at her and Sansa cannot bare it. “Jon, please, look at me!”

His head snaps up, and his brows furrow. “Sansa?” 

Sansa feels silly, and all too much like the child she had once been, but she cannot help it. She does not wish to be the child in Kings Landing, who learnt that her emotions were just as dangerous as armies and to speak her thoughts was to speak treason. For the first time in so long, Sansa didn’t want to hold her thoughts in cages and shackles; she wants to be free.

“You kissed me,” Sansa says, her eyes narrowing. “You kissed me, and you left.” 

Jon looks down, and his cheeks flood with colour. Sheepish, and broody, and silent, he is everything she knows him to be and she wishes for just one moment that he could be the Jon of that night; the Jon that took her with no shame. “I’m sorry.” 

Sansa shakes her head, exasperated. “I don’t want you to apologise, Jon. Why- why did you do it?”

“Kiss you?” Jon asks, and she nods, desperate to know. He looks away, and Sansa wants to ring his throat. “I don’t know. I was angry, I was- it’s been- I’m sorry, Sansa. I’m so sorry. I was wrong to treat you as I did, and I- gods, I am your brother and it was a mistake. It was wrong.”

Sansa’s fist clenches, and she wants to strike him, for he is apologising for something that she still has no answer for. _He cannot want you,_ she thinks, _it was a drunken mistake, and we are paying for it._

Sansa cannot bear the truth, so she moves away from him, and wipes her hands on her skirts. “I have news, from Lord Baelish.” 

“And?”

“He says Daenerys Targaryen has landed,” Sansa says. “That she plans to take Kings Landing. That she is joined by my … by Lord Tyrion.” 

Jon looks up, and a shadow comes over his face. “Daenerys Targaryen?” 

“Your … your Aunt,” Sansa says, handing Jon the letter she had tucked into her sleeve. “She has three dragons, Jon.”

“Dragons?”

Sansa nods. “She is at Dragonstone,” Sansa says, watching as he read the letter. “Lord Baelish is going to treat with her.” 

“But he is declared for the North,” Jon says, his eyes narrowing. “Is he going to switch sides so easily?” 

“He has before, Jon,” Sansa says, but she shakes her head. “Either way, I believe Lord Baelish is treating with her as an ally of the North, or as much as he can be anyone’s ally. I don’t trust him Jon, but for him to betray us now would be idiotic. He knows politics, but he also knows the danger beyond the wall and he knows he needs you.”

“And then what happens after the Wall?” Jon asks, tormented. “If there is anything after the wall? These men battle over crowns while I battle the dead, and now I have to think of a war with them too?” 

A surge of something foreign goes through Sansa, and her fingers twitch as she reaches out to grasp Jon’s hand, before she pulls back. _You cannot feel such things. He is your brother._

But then Jon looks to her hand, his brow furrowing at its outreached form, and she cannot help herself when she steps forward and grasps her hand in his own. She wants to wash away his torment with her warmth, and to keep the worries of the world from him. She wants to see him smile, and to hear his laugh; she wants him to be in Winterfell with her, not fighting at the Wall against death.  

“I will fight that war for you,” Sansa whispers, her hand scorching in his. “I will fight every war for you, if need be.” 

“What would the people say,” Jon chuckles, “if their King has his Lady fight his wars for him?” 

Sansa smiles, chuckling at him before she meets his grey orbs. “Your Lady?” 

Jon looks at her in trepidation, before his brow furrows. “I- it is wrong to want you, Sansa.”

“Many things are wrong,” Sansa whispers, stepping forward, “they kill children every day, and tear families apart, but how can love be wrong?” 

“Is that what this is?” Jon asks, and Sansa does not know. 

“I’m tired,” Sansa admits, “and I’m so frightened of tomorrow. I feel like every moment of peace is another step closer to death, and it scares me, Jon. When you kissed me, I was scared, but you have been the only thing that has made me happy.” 

“They would think it wrong,” He whispers, and Sansa laughs.

“They thought nothing of what Ramsay Bolton did to me,” Sansa says, tormented, “I could care less what the people think, Jon. If I am to die, I want to die knowing that I had you – not caring for what others may say.” 

“Sansa-“ 

She cannot talk anymore, so she simply steps forward and presses her lips to his. And then she alight, burning with Jon’s fire and she knows that his arms are the only place that could hold happiness. 

Sansa has known pain, and sorrow; loss, and incomprehensible grief. But when she kisses him, Sansa Stark forgets it all and melts into his touch. _When I am in his arms, I can be the girl I was so long ago, and for just a moment, his kiss is everything._

She does not object when he unlaces her gown, nor does she say anything when he pulls her skirts from her. When he asks her permission to remove her shift, she grants it, with a thousand kisses to his lips and with a soft moan of happiness.

His touch is warm, and safe, and she wonders if this is what the heavens feel like, for Jon Snows touch is everything happy and she aches for it. When his fingers tickle the band of her small clothes, she moans, shifting as his fingers find her slick wetness before they enter her.

 When he enters her, she does not scream or cry as she did when it was done before. Instead, she sighs and whispers his name like a chanted prayer; _“Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon.”_

“I love you,” He whispers, before he is inside of her and taking her as she has so imagined. 

He peppers kisses to her bare chest, and neck – his hands in her hair as he whispers her name, over and over and over again, his hips meeting hers as the fire burns in the hearth. 

She can feel a knot building in the depths of her core, and before she can contain it, she is screaming his name as she peaks. Her hands find his back, and she is scratching his bare skin as the pleasure rolls through her. 

He grunts her name in her ear when he finds his release, and she closes her eyes, inhaling the scent of him as she feels his warmth. 

“I love you,” He whispers, again, and again, “I love you.” 

And she feels it. 

 

* * *

 

They stay abed for days. 

“Don’t you think they’ll whisper,” Sansa asks one morning, when Jon buries himself in between her legs and she is crying out for release, “about what their King is doing to the Lady of Winterfell?” 

“I do not care,” Jon says, peppering kisses on her inner thigh as she sighs. “Not if I spend all my days here, I do not care for their words.”

“You should,” Sansa laughs, clenching at the sheets. “You should care very mu- _oh.”_  

Jon holds her in his arms as they discuss, in hushed whispers, what might become of this world of theirs. 

“Daenerys has captured Kings Landing,” Jon whispers, and Sansa moves closer to his chest – his heartbeat thrumming beneath her ear. “They say she has a nephew with her.” 

Sansa looks up, cocking a brow. “A nephew?”

“Aegon, he calls himself,” Jon says, toying with a strand of Sansa’s hair. “My brother.” 

“Aegon’s skull was crushed by Gregor Clegane in the siege of Kings Landing,” Sansa says, shaking her head. “Westeros knows this – this ‘Aegon’ could be anyone, Jon.”

“They say he looks like Rhaegar,” Jon says, his throat tightening. “I- I do not suppose I look like him.”

Sansa pushes herself up on his chest, and meets Jon’s eyes. Her hand comes to toy with his hair, before she looks to his Stark eyes, and she smiles. “You look like your mother. You look like a Stark.” 

“They said I looked like Eddard,” Jon says, shaking his head. “But it was Lyanna.” 

Sansa shrugs, her hand coming to trace his nose, before she cups his chin. “No. Your nose, it’s different and your chin, that’s different too. Maybe you got that from him.” 

Jon looks away from her, and into the fire that burnt in the hearth. “They loved each other, and let the world burn for it. How could they do that?” 

Sansa shrugs. “If I could run away with you, Jon Snow, I would be gone from here.” 

“No,” Jon says, cupping her cheek. “That’s not you.” 

“Haven’t you met me?” Sansa laughs. “I feel running away is the only thing I may be good at.” 

Jon chuckles, but he presses a kiss to her forehead and smiles. “No. You are dutiful, and loyal. You are your father’s daughter, after all.”

Sansa beams, before her smile dampens and she admits, “I’m so scared, Jon.” 

He nods. “I know. I am too.” 

viii.

“Ride with me,” Jon says the next afternoon, his hands coming behind her hips as he presses a kiss to her neck. “Come ride with me in the Wolfswood.”

“You want to ride with me?” Sansa questions, cocking a brow. “I will hold you back. I’m not Arya.”

“I know who you are,” He whispers into her neck, his hands squeezing the skin of her hips. “Ride with me, Sansa.” 

Sansa thinks of everything she was planning to do today, before she decides that being with Jon for just a few hours would trump it all. 

“Okay,” She says. 

They fly through the wolfs wood, the King on his black stead and the Lady of Winterfell with her hair of flames flying behind her. 

When they return, they are full of laughter and the joy of the ride, but Davos meets them at the gates and Sansa knows their time is coming to an end. 

 _Happiness of mine could never last,_ Sansa thinks as she dismounts. 

“What is it?” Sansa asks, her hand coming to Jon’s arm as he reads the letter. “Jon, what is it?”

Ser Davos clears his throat. “My Lady, the Lord Commander says the Wall could fall.” 

“No,” Sansa whispers, dread filling her as she looks to Jon. “Jon, what are you to do?”

Jon does not say anything, and Sansa knows then that she has lost him. 

“I will come back to you,” Jon says against the back of her neck as she cries. “I will come back to you, Sansa.” 

“Do not lie to me,” She whispers, shaking her head. “You cannot lie to me, Jon.” 

And so he holds her close, and says nothing, for if he says he is coming back to her, it will be an empty promise. 

They kiss, and hold each other, and whisper sweet nothings, for they can do nothing else but hold each other when they know the end is so near. 

“I have lost everything,” Sansa says, holding Jon’s face to hers as she let out a sob. “I have lost everyone, Jon. I cannot lose you, as well.”

Jon holds her gaze, and grazes her cheek as he says, “I love you too much to lose you, do you understand? If I die, I die yours. If I live, I will live for you. But you’ve asked me not to lie, and so I won’t, so you have to know I might not come back, Sansa.” 

Sansa’s head falls to his bare chest, and she lets out a cry. “Don’t say that.” 

“It is the truth,” Jon murmurs, pushing a scarlet curl from her face. “I will do everything I can to protect you, Sansa.” 

“Promise me, Jon,” Sansa says, pressing her lips to his as the salt of her tears coat their lips, “promise me that you will try to come back to me.” 

“I promise.” 

Sansa nods, and wipes at her face before Jon pushes out of bed and goes to where their furs lay. “What are you doing?” 

“Come,” Jon says, passing her her boots and furs. “We have somewhere we must be.” 

The Godswood was covered in snow, and the red of the weirwood bled against the white sea. They are the only ones beneath the tree – them two alone with the Gods, and the bleeding tree of white and red. 

Sansa can see her breath as it billows out in front of her in a cloud of white, and she smiles as snow falls onto them. 

“What are we doing?” Sansa asks, as they stop before the weirwood. 

Jon looks to her, his face softening as he captures her lips in his. “I am claiming you.”

“What?” 

“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” Jon asks, staring at her. 

Sansa is confused, but it is just for a moment before it hits her. “We are marrying?” 

“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” Jon repeats, a smile stretching across his face. 

“Sansa,” She says, beaming at the man she loves, “of the House Stark, comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?” 

“Jon, of House … Snow,” Jon says, scratching at his head awkwardly. 

Sansa narrows her eyes, and squeezes his hand. “Jon, of House Targaryen and Stark, King in the North.” 

He looks to her as if she is the sun, and moon, and all the stars, and Sansa wonders how he can think so much of her.   

“Am I not meant to say that?” Jon whispers to her, and she shakes her head. 

“No, Snow,” Sansa says. 

“Who gives her?”

“Sansa, of House Stark.” Sansa smiles, oddly thrilled that she can give herself away. _For I was given away by my captor at my first wedding, and by a man that betrayed my family at the second._  

“Lady Sansa,” Jon whispers, pulling her closely, “will you take me?” 

“I take you.” 

And then they are wed.

They kneel in the snow before the Old Gods, and pray before he kisses her beneath a snowing sky, and she feels nothing but warmth in the coldest of nights.

“My wife,” Jon whispers, smiling. 

Sansa is thrilled at the word, but she knows it is a farce. “We had no witnesses, my love.”

“I don’t care,” Jon says. “You are my wife, in the Old Gods eyes.” 

 

* * *

 

 

He leaves as Winter comes, and with Winter, comes her babe. 

The first time Sansa Stark feels her babe quicken within her, she thinks of its father; with his hair of black and eyes of stone. She thinks of the man who had left, leaving her with nothing but the cold winds and the babe in her belly. 

She thinks of how his arms had felt that last night before his departure; how his lips had trailed along her skin, leaving stars in his wake. 

She thinks of how the letter she has written, again and again, only for the flames to consume it each and every time. 

She watches from the tower window, and wonders if she will ever see him again. She had once thought it would be sweet to see him again, but that was when she thought him to be her father’s bastard and she nothing but a prisoner of the Vale. When she had seen him on the balcony of Castle Black, the heavens had sung and she had seen the stars in his eyes.

 _Father_ , her first thought had been, before she had realised her mistake. This man that had stood before her was not Ned Stark - no, the scar that slashed through his brow proved that and the memory of Ned Starks blood on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor told her differently. 

Even now, she could still see the way it pooled at his headless body and dripped onto the dirtied streets of Kings Landing. Even now, she could remember wondering how much blood a body could possibly have. Even now, she could remember how her father’s grey eyes had fixed upon her as they held his head for the crowd to see. 

But those were thoughts meant for the night, when she was beneath her furs and her misery could swallow her. 

 _You’ll poison the babe if you think such things._

At least that was what Old Nan told her. 

“The child is of the North,” Old Nan had said, pressing her withered, and now scarred hands to Sansa’s belly. Old Nan had come from the Dreadfort, and when Sansa had seen the old woman’s withered face, she had cried for all that she had lost and all that she would never have. “It is ice made flesh, but even ice can be destroyed when confronted by pain.” 

It had been sweet to see him, though; as sweet as the sight of Winterfell had been. His arms were home, and just as he whispered her name, Sansa was sure she could hear the wolves howling. 

But he has gone to fight, and she has been left here, to Winterfell. 

She had seen Jon fight all her life; as a Snow, and then as Lord Commander, and then as a King. Bastard, Lord, King; _how quickly they rise,_ she can remember thinking when the men of the North had proclaimed her brother to be their King and she their Princess. 

It had been sweet, too, to see him beat the man she had married in the Godswood. It had been too sweet, to see Jon atop Ramsay, beating him as he had once beat her. Sansa could still taste the triumph in her mouth, while her skin still crawled with the touch of his hands. 

She had become a widow, and how happy she was to be so. 

He had left Winterfell, and with it he left the crown of the North, to Sansa. Queen Regent, rather than Princess, and as her belly swells beneath heavy skirts, she wears the crown that weighs so heavy on Jon’s head.

 _It has weighed too heavily on Robbs head, and he had paid the iron price._  

She sang Brave Danny Flint to her babe, and as her stomach swelled with the life Jon Snow had left her with, she dreamt of a daughter with grey eyes, and dark raven hair. A girl like Arya. A girl like father. 

She takes long walks in the Godswood, with Ghost by her side. Jon has left him with her, and Sansa wonders if he knew that she carried his seed when he had left. Ghost, and this babe are her only consolations, and when Ghost nudges at her belly, she wonders what Lady would be like now. 

When she can no longer hide the truth, no one asks who the father is. It is too long after her wedding to the Bolton bastard for it to be his, and so they know. Of course none would ask their Lady, but Sansa saw their looks of wonder as she makes commands or attended to the rebuild, and always, she would leave with her hand securely atop her belly, as if to protect the child within from the poison of others. 

Sansa is as big as a wheelhouse when she receives the news. The Others have been vanquished, and Jon Snow lives. Her happiness is the sun that no longer shines then, and she cannot help but laugh with joy, and clasp at her belly as her child moves within. 

_It is okay, little wolf. Your papa lives, and we shall be happy._

 

* * *

The babe comes beneath a bleeding sky.

Sansa awakes to scarlet clouds, and sharp pains, and she knows that her babe is coming. And come it does.

Old Nan is beside her, and holds her hand, as she had with the past Ladies of Winterfell. Sansa wonders if her mother screamed as she does, or if her Lady mother was as composed as she always is. But then Sansa thinks of the way her mother had wailed when Bran fell, or how she had heard her mother yelling at her father late one night, and she knew that as much of a lady as her mother was, she was strong. Porcelain covered flesh, but with a spine of steel. 

Sansa can be like her Lady Mother now, just as she has always tried to be. 

 _Porcelain, but steel._  

And so she screams. 

She wishes for a death at a point, but it is when Maester Marwin pulls the babe from her and Sansa hears a wail pierce the air, Sansa weeps. 

“A fine daughter, my Lady,” Maester Marwin murmurs, smiling as he holds the babe close to him before he places the squirming child on her belly. 

 _I am a mother now._

Her daughter is not what she expects, and yet she is everything Sansa has ever yearned for. With a cap of raven curls, her daughter is a small thing; smaller than Sansa had imagined someone could be. Sansa pulls her daughter to her chest, cradling the small body to her as she gasps for breath. She feels like all the air in the world is lost to her, for the sun is in her arms and she cannot help but bask at it. 

 _Is this how my Lady mother felt?_

Sansa thought she loved her family, loved _Jon,_ but she wonders if she has ever truly loved anyone when her daughter opens her eyes. Large, grey eyes stare at her, and Sansa truly weeps, for staring at her are the eyes of the North; the Starks. Her father, her sister, _Jon_ are staring at her through her daughter’s eyes, and she thanks all the Gods for such a gift. 

 _They have taken so much from me, but now I have someone. Now I’m not alone, not truly._

But within the depths of her daughter’s grey eyes, Sansa can see a streak of violet and her stomach rolls. 

“What shall you call her, my lady?”

“Lyarra,” Sansa whispers, her fingers tracing her daughters face; from the slope of her nose, _mothers nose_ , to her large eyes, _Jon’s eyes,_ to her pouting, beautiful lips, _my lips_. “She was the Lady of Winterfell, and father loved her so much that he would not speak of her.” 

“Lyarra Stark was as strong as the Wall, and was as beautiful as a summer snow,” Old Nan murmurs, her withered hand coming to cup her head. “She was a good, Northern woman.” 

“Lyarra Stark,” Sansa whispers, smiling. “My daughter.” 

 

* * *

 

 

They call her child a bastard. 

Sansa never imagined herself to be the mother of a bastard, but when she gazes at Lyarra, she knows she would bear the shame a thousand times over just to have her daughter’s warmth in her arms.

How can there be shame in happiness, when there is no shame in the murder of innocents? How can there be shame in a child’s smile, just for the blood it bears? Sansa wonders how the world could be so cruel as she stares at Lyarra as she suckles at her breast, her chest clenched in fears as she wonders if they will whisper bastard about her babe. 

 _She is no bastard,_ Sansa thinks, _she is daughter of a wed couple, before the Old Gods._  

 _No. I will not let them. I will kill all of them who think there is any shame in her existence, for there is no shame in how she came to be. To shame her is to shame the sun, and no one can shame the sun._

“I will keep you safe,” Sansa whispers, sighing as she presses a kiss to her daughter’s head. “You are the blood of the Kings of Winter, and old Valyria, and you will never hear their whispers.” 

Lyarra is sleeping when they come. 

Sansa is dressed in a rush, and she watches as the Lords of the North pour into the courtyard. _Where is Jon? Why is he not riding?_   _Why are they here_? 

It is Lord Manderly who gives her the letter, and it is when she sees the three headed dragon that her smile dies.

 _Jon, King in the North, is the trueborn son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, and as such has no claim to the throne of the North. He will marry Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the first of her name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and the crown in the North will fall to Princess Sansa, his heir._  

They bow to her, and call her Queen in the North, just as they had a year prior in this same room.  

They had taken Jon, and in return presented her with a crown. 

 _I don't want it._  

But it matters not what she wants; she is a Queen, and a Stark of Winterfell. 

When has either of those ever gotten what they wanted? 

 _What a tragedy it is to be Queen._  

When she returns to her chambers, she weeps for what had been promised. Her father promised her a life as a Queen, with a golden haired King at her side. Her mother had promised her the life of song. Cersei had promised her misery, and Joffrey had promised her pain. Robb had promised her freedom. Jon had promised that he would come back to her. 

 _Promises mean nothing in a world where duty kills love._

Old Nan finds her, and says, “Queens do not weep, child. It will do you no good to cry for what could be, and what would be. He is gone, and you must be strong.” 

“How can I be strong,” Sansa asks, a sob escaping her, “when he is gone?”

“Just as your mother was,” Old Nan says, “just as Lyanna Stark, and Lyarra Stark before her. Just as you were, when you wed Ramsay Bolton in the Godswood. Just as you were, when you were in the South. You are a Stark, and Starks do not cry for what could have been.” 

“It matters not what I am,” Sansa snaps, rounding on Old Nan with a fury. “He _left_ me and now I’m alone. He promised he wouldn’t leave – that he would _protect_ me.” 

“Rickard Stark was promised that his daughter would marry a Southern Lord, and that his eldest son would be Lord of Winterfell,” Old Nan murmurs, “and then his daughter ran away, and his son ran after her. Rickard Stark was promised peace, and the dragons burnt him in their throne room while his boy strangled himself.” 

Sansa’s voice is cold as she says, “I know what they did to my Grandfather, Nan.” 

“Your father was promised the life of a second son,” Old Nan says, as Lyarra begins to mewl from her cradle. “He was promised a keep in the North, and a Northern wife. Instead, his kin were murdered, his sister gone, and his brothers promised passed on to her. Eddard Stark was promised many things, but I know he never expected to be promised the dishonour of having a bastard, but he did as he had to because he was a Stark and when a woman he loved ask it of him, he fathered a bastard. Love may be the death of duty, my girl, but duty is not without victims, and neither is love.” 

“Was,” Sansa snaps, narrowing her eyes. “He _was_ a Stark. And then they cut his head off and put it on a spike.” 

“Aye, they did,” Old Nan says as Sansa presses Lyarra to her chest, “but tell me, child, what happened to those that took your fathers head?” 

“They died.”

“They died,” Old Nan whispers, her hand coming to cup Lyarra’s head, “and you lived. Show them what it is to live, when they have died. Show them what it is to rule, where they have failed. Show them what it means to be a Stark, for Starks survive.”

_Tell that to Robb. To mother. To father. To Rickon. To them all._

“I don’t want to be Queen,” Sansa whispers, tasting salt on her lips. “I didn’t want any of this to happen.”

Old Nan cups her cheeks, and brushes a copper curl from her eyes, before she offers her a toothless smile and says, “When you were born, your father held you close to his chest and whispered that you were a river babe, born from the same waters as your mother. He said to your mother that while you may be a fish in looks, your blood is the blood of the wolf and as you howled, all of the bells rung. I have never seen the North celebrate such a child. And now … you are their Queen, and you wear their crown. Howl when you must, your grace, but be like winter when the Lords call, and be like spring to your people, for what is a Queen whose people hate her?”

“I knew a Queen whose people hated her,” Sansa whispers, “and they say they couldn’t pry the crown from her hands; not even in death.”

“That Queen scarred your skin, and stole your dreams,” Old Nan whispers, before she smiles and looks to Sansa’s daughter. “Be the Queen she wasn’t.” 

Sansa looked to Lyarra then, who had fallen asleep against her chest and whose fist was wrapped tightly around a stray curl.

 _I am a Queen, and I must protect my child._

“Lyarra Stark,” Sansa says, her hand coming to brush her daughters raven cap of hair, “you are a Princess now.” 

Old Nan smiles, and nods, and Sansa wonders if she truly is a Queen, for Nan seems to know more about it then she does. 

 

* * *

 

 

The Northern Lords see her child, and think her a whore. 

It is in her council that she introduces the Lords to her babe; to her Lyarra. They scowl, and whisper bastard beneath their breath, but Sansa is their Queen now and she will not have them speak of her child like they had once spoken of Jon. 

“Princess, and my heir,” Sansa says, holding Lyarra tighter to her chest as one of the Lords shifts in his chair. 

“My Queen, she is a bastard-“ 

“-as was your King,” Sansa responds, cool. _You are winter. You are ice. Anger is not needed here._ “And if I can recall, Lord Glover, you pledged your loyalty to House Stark. I married her father in a Godswood before the Old Gods, and to the Old Gods, we are wed. My daughter was born of such a marriage, and she is heir apparent. I see no issue-“ 

“The issue, your grace, is that a bastard will not be respected,” Lord Glover began, to Maege Mormont’s laughter. 

“Oh, be quiet, Lord Glover,” Maege snaps, standing to look at the new Princess. “She is a bonny babe, my lady, and a true Stark Princess.”

Sansa beams at the compliment, as Maege cups her daughters head. The motion snaps her daughters eyes open, and Maege gasps at the sight of the grey eyes. “Oh, your grace.” 

And Sansa can see that the secret she has kept for so long is known, as Maege Mormont smiles at her daughter and whispers about a true Stark princess. 

“She is the image of Lady Lyanna, of Lord Eddard, of-“ 

 _Jon Snow._

The words hang heavily in the air, but no one speaks his name. Sansa knows that the secret she hadn’t dared whisper was now known by all her Lords, and Sansa knows that they will love Lyarra, even if they call her a whore.

“She is a Stark,” Lord Manderly agrees, before he nods – his hand coming to his beard. “Your grace, we pledged for King Jon and knew he was a bastard. Your girl is a welcome Princess in this hard winter.”

The Lords call for a blessing, and so Sansa dresses her babe in furs and she walks to the Godswood, wearing the crown that had killed her brother, and had alienated her lover. But as Sansa kneels in the snow, and asks for the Old Gods to bless her babe, she thinks of Jon Snow and his dragon Queen, and wants to weep. 

 

* * *

 

 

The letter weighs heavily in her hands as she reads it, again and again. 

 _The wedding was a grand affair, and the Queen wore a gown of white with Dothraki bells in her hair. They will write songs about it, I am sure – just as they will write songs of the King who loved two Queens._

Lord Baelish is not a man to speak so plainly in letters, even in such a time of peace, but Sansa knows that there was no peace despite what some would say. _Just because the lions are dead does not mean there are peace in these lands,_ Sansa thinks as she looks over her correspondence – her chest tightening as she sees the perfect scroll of the Queen of these six Kingdoms. 

Sansa has read it, again and again, and the words had seemed crueller each time she read over it. The white Queen could write her pretty words, but beneath their beautiful cursive, Sansa could see the threat that existed; the threat of three dragons, and a large army. _But not as big as the North,_ Sansa thinks, closing her eyes as she recounts the numbers that Lord Glover had informed her of. 

The Queen writes of Jon once, and it is enough for Sansa to grow cold at. 

_Please know that it is my husband’s desire to keep the North independent, and so it is my desire to see our Kingdoms be friends._

And so Sansa writes back, in her flowing cursive, that the North and the South shall be friends for it would please the Queen in the North to know that peace has returned. 

Wearing a crown is like wearing chains, and Sansa has never felt more alone than she does when she sits atop her throne. Her siblings are gone, and her castle is cold, but her daughter grows like a flower on a summer branch and Sansa cannot help but think that while her pain may never lessen, her pleasure may grow as her daughter does.

It is Lady Mormont who raises the issue. 

“If the Queen in the South truly wishes for peace, she should give you the Frey’s, my Lady,” Lady Maege says, her eyes narrowing. “Half the North was slaughtered there, and we deserve to know that they are finished.” 

Sansa stares at Maege squarely. “You wish for revenge?” 

“Justice,” Maege corrects. 

“How often does justice become revenge?” Sansa asks, taking a sip of her wine. 

“The Frey’s butchered your family,” Maege Mormont says, grasping the Queens hand over the table. “The Frey’s butchered my daughter. They took Dacey from me, and I shall not rest until I know justice has been done.” 

Sansa thinks of her beautiful mother, and how she once smiled. Sansa thinks of her brother, and how he had hugged her close when they had left. 

“ _You shall come to the Capital when I wed, though, won’t you, Robb?”_

Robb had looked to her with his Tully eyes, and had laughed. “ _Sansa, you have not even left Winterfell left! Please wait at least a minute before you start thinking of such things.”_

“ _But you will?_ ” She had asked, and Robb had smiled brightly – a smile that he had always kept for her, for she was his first sibling.

“ _Of course, sister,”_ Robb had laughed, helping her into the litter. “ _We shall see each other very soon.”_  

Sansa aches when she thinks of Robb, and how he had smiled that day. She wonders, now, if that was the true day Winter dawned – when she last saw Robb’s smile and Winterfell’s walls. And then she thinks of the twins, and how the river had run red with her family’s blood.

 _He wished to present Robbs head on a platter before me,_ Sansa recalls, thinking of the golden King. _But he did not live. I did._  

Sansa thinks of those that fought for their King, and who had paid for their loyalty in blood and treachery. Sansa thinks of a wedding that had been red, and she feels her blood boil in the same way it had when she had thought of her second husband. 

“Then justice shall be done,” Sansa says, nodding at the she-bear. “For the North Remembers.”   

 

* * *

 

 

Lyarra grows like a flower in the spring, and ravens leave with the winds.

Sansa writes of the Norths right to justice, but the white Queen does not grant it.

Instead she writes that there are many justices to be done, and the North shall have it in due time. 

 _Waiting,_ Sansa thinks as the snow comes, _I am always waiting._  

Lyarra loves the water, and Sansa can see the Tully in her when she takes her babe to the water.

“Oh, are you a little fish?” Sansa asks as she holds her babe in the water, Lyarra splashing the water of the tub. 

She is more than six moons now, and Sansa wonders how she had lived a life where Lya didn’t exist. 

“Oh, little Lya, are you a fish?” Sansa sings, giggling as she blew on her daughter’s stomach, eliciting laughter from her. Sansa leans back against the metal of the tub, and raises her knees as she grins, wetting her daughter’s hair with a flannel. “No, Lya, you aren’t a fish. You’re a wolf.” 

Lya’s grey eyes are wide, and she lets out a squeal as her mother’s fingers lightly tickle her chubby arms. Lyarra is all her father, but Sansa can see sometimes, from the way her lips sit to the shape of her eyes, that she is also her daughter. _But sometimes I can see violet in those eyes of hers, and I fear that the North will see them too._  

“My little wolf,” Sansa whispers, smiling as she presses a kiss to her daughter’s head, “my princess.” 

The door opens, and Sansa sinks lower into the water. “Jeyne?” 

Jeyne Pool had returned to Winterfell near on three moons prior, after a life on the Kingsroad. When Sansa had seen her friend, she had been full of joy – so joyful, in fact, that she hadn’t cared that the people saw their Queen crying. 

“Your Grace,” Jeyne murmurs from behind the dressing screen. “A raven has come.” 

_Dark wings, dark words._

“And who is it from?” Sansa asks, leaning Lyarra against her knees.

“The hand of the Queen, your grace.” 

A hysterical laugh bursts from Sansa, and she looks to Lyarra, cocking a brow. “You mean Tyrion Lannister? My husband?” 

“Yes, my lady.” 

Her hands are still wet when she reads the words, and sees the familiar scrawl. She hasn’t seen it in so many years that she wonders why Tyrion Lannister is bothering to write her, but it is not until she reads past the pleasantries that she finds his reason.

 _My dear Lady Wife,_  

_Queen Daenerys and King Jon invite you to Kings Landing, and hope that you accept your invitation. Prince Aegon will marry the Princess of Dorne in the coming moons, and the royal family would enjoy the visit of the esteemed Queen of the North._

_I have news that your sister, Princess Arya, is alive and well and living comfortably in Kings Landing with King Jon. She writes that she is well, and will come to Winterfell soon, but she is staying for the executions._

Sansa’s heart squeezes painfully in her chest at those words, and she cannot help the gasp of surprise that leaves her. Arya is alive – Arya is well. The words are so welcome Sansa reads them, again and again, hoping to all the Gods that they may be truth and not some lie.

 _I also write to you with matters of the heart. My brother Jaimie has been exiled from Westeros, and I beseech your grace to accept him in the North. If you bear me any love, you will receive him without chains. If you do me such favour, I will be in your debt._

_Lastly, I have heard whispers that you have born a daughter, and she bears the name Stark. Shall I claim her, and give her the name Lannister?_

_Your loving Lord Husband,_

_Lord Tyrion Lannister, Warden of the West, Lord of Casterly Rock, and Hand to the Queen._

“Burn it,” Sansa says, holding Lyarra tightly to her chest as she feels the ache of his words.

 _If Tyrion knows, **he** knows. _

“Burn it?” Jeyne asks. “Surely-“ 

“Burn it, and I shall write him back,” Sansa says, rocking Lyarra in her arms as she instructed Jeyne to bring her a quill. There, with her daughter in her arms, she wrote to her Lord Husband. 

_My Lord Hand,_

_Your brother shall be safe in the North, but I expect a Lannister to pay his debts. Please inform their graces that I shall not travel South – not for any wedding, execution, or cause._  

 _My daughter is a wolf, and no lion. Claim her, and I shall not be merciful._

_Signed,_

_Sansa, Queen in the North, Warden of the North and Lady of Winterfell._

She watches as the raven flies away with Lyarra at her breast. She wonders if her husband will laugh, as she suspects, as she _hopes_. _He was kind to me, if being kind meant saving my rape for my second husband._

Lyarra lets out a whimper as Sansa allows her thoughts to travel to Jon, and she can feel her throat tightening. 

 _I loved him, and he left me. Like they all do._

 

* * *

 

“Jaime Lannister.”

Brienne is stiff behind her, and the golden, one handed lion looks defeated as he stands before his good sister. The Queen in the North sits in her throne as if she was made for it, with her auburn hair flowing down her white pelts and the crown that her brother wore fastened on her head.  

Jaime Lannister is nothing as Sansa remembers – his golden hair is dirtied with mud, and his clothes are nothing but rags. 

 _How the lions have fallen._  

“Your brother wrote to me, and petitioned for your life to be spared,” Sansa says, her eyes narrowing as she looks to the golden knight. “Do you think I should spare it?” 

“I suppose that it is for you to decide, my Queen,” Ser Jaime says, waving his golden hand around, “I am a knight with no hand and with no title. I suppose it doesn’t matter what I think any more.” 

He says so with a smile, and Sansa cannot help but ask, “I hear you killed your sister, Ser Jaime. Did you?”

“Yes, my Queen,” He says with a nod, his expression pinching with grimness. “She became mad.” 

“She didn’t _become_ mad,” Sansa sneers, angered by the thought that Cersei Lannister was anything but deranged. “She was always mad.” 

“Yes,” Jaime says with a nod, “but she had a pretty face, didn’t she?” 

“But an ugly soul,” Sansa says, standing from her eat. “May the Gods have mercy on her.” 

“Surely the Stranger will already be regretting taking her,” Ser Jaime says, “for she would already be complaining, if I know my sister.” 

Sansa stepped down from the dais, her white skirts swishing at her feet as she stood beside Jamie Lannister. “I was not speaking of the Seven, Ser Jaime. I once kept to them, but they did not save my father’s head, nor did they save me from your son’s monstrosities. I was talking of the Old Gods, and from what I know of the Old Gods, they will have no mercy.”

“Queen Sansa, you have grown,” Ser Jaime says, his eyes trapped on the Queen, “to be very much like your Lady Mother.” 

“They say I am more like my Lord Father,” Sansa says with a tight smile, looking to Brienne over her shoulder before she beckons Jaime to follow her. “Come.” 

They walk through the repaired halls, and Sansa leads them up to the nursery. Sansa cannot help the beaming smile that alights her face when she opens the door, and sees her daughters face.

“Mama!” Her daughter says from Jeyne’s arms, her chubby fists clenching and unclenching at the sight of her. “Mama, Mama!”

“My Lya!” Sansa giggles, running to scoop her babe from Jeyne’s arms before she peppered kisses over her daughters face. Lyarra giggles at her mother’s touch, wiggling in her arms as she repeated, “Mama, Mama.”

“It is the only word she can say just yet,” Sansa says, grinning up at Jaime Lannister – who was watching her with a dumbfounded expression. “She is but eight months, and she is my heir. Surely you have heard the whispers?” 

Jaime does not let it show on his face if he has, for he simply shrugs, “I hear many whispers, my Lady, but they’re usually about me.” 

“Of course they would be,” Sansa says, looking to Jeyne and Brienne. “You may leave us.”

They both nod, before they leave the nursery. Sansa takes Lyarra to the seat by the window, sitting down and spreading her skirts out. Sansa smiles brightly to Lyarra, giving her babe hold of her wolf locket and allowing her to slobber over the silver oval, as she always does. 

“I’m sorry for everything that has befallen you,” Sansa says, not looking up from her daughter. 

It is a while before he speaks. “I would think you would want it to happen.” 

“Brienne has spoken of you to me,” Sansa says, meeting his green eyes as she motions to a chair near her. “Please, Ser Jaime, take a seat.” 

“You seemed rather angry at me before, my lady,” Jaime says, confused. “I-“ 

“I am a Queen first,” Sansa says, cocking her head to the side before she rethinks her words. “No. A mother first, a Queen second, and Sansa third. My mother trusted you to bring me back to her, and then she died. Brienne carried the sword of my father, which you gave to her, and which now rests in his crypt. You pushed my brother from a window, and robbed him of his legs, and you hurt my father, but from what I’ve heard, Ser Jaime, you are not as you would have the world believe.” 

“I am exactly what the world thinks,” Jaime says, raising his golden hand in salute. “Even my dear brother could not protect me from exile.” 

“But he wrote to me beseeching for your safety,” Sansa says, shaking her head as she runs her hand over Lyarra’s curls. “The dragon Queen didn’t strip you of your name, did she?”

“No,” Jaime says, confused. “I am still a Lannister. For however much the Queen might be the mother of dragons, she can’t take away a name.” 

“And so you still pay your debts?” Sansa asks, cocking a brow. 

“I suppose so.” 

Sansa smiles, looking down to her daughter. “You are to guard my daughter, Lyarra. Catelyn Stark bid you protect me, and now I am bidding you protect her granddaughter. I won’t be having a white cloak made up for you, though.”

Jaime Lannister looks to the babe in Sansa Starks arms, and wonders if exile is so bad after all. 

 

* * *

 

 

Lyarra is playing in the snow when the horns are blown. 

Sansa is laughing as she teaches Lyarra how to roll a snowball in her heavily gloved little hands before the horns blared through her ears. Ghost, who stands beside his little master runs from them, and to the gates, to Lyarra’s calls of, “Woof, Woof!” 

The smile died from her lips, and Sansa pulled Lyarra to her feet and passed her into Jaime’s arms. “Take her inside, Ser Jaime. Make sure she is warm.”

“As you command, my Lady,” He says, and Sansa turns to the doors – striding to the gate as she looked to her guards. 

“Why are horns being blared?” Sansa asks, narrowing her eyes.

“There is a rider,” One of the guards says to their Queen, and Sansa swallows her fears as she looks to Brienne. “My Queen, shall we open the gates?”

“What sigil do they bear?” She demands, and the guard shakes his head. 

“No sigil, your grace,” He says. “Just a horse- and- and a wolf?” 

Hope surges through Sansa’s body, and she can barely stand as she screams, “Open the gates!”

The gates groan as they are opened, and as soon as Ghost can leave, he sprints from Winterfell’s walls. Sansa follows the white wolf, her skirts in her hands as she runs from Winterfell with the guard’s words echoing through Sansa’s ears. 

When she sees the horse, and the girl atop it, Sansa wants to fall to her knees and weep. For atop the horse, Sansa sees a ghost riding towards her and she doesn’t know if she is dreaming or if she is seeing the truth. For so many times Sansa has dreamed of those that haunt her, and for so many times Sansa has been shrouded by the darkness of their deaths. 

But she is not a mirage, or a dream – the girl atop the horse is her sister, and Sansa wills her legs to go faster. 

“Arya!” She screams, for she cannot help it. Tears are her mask, and Sansa can barely see as she stumbles through the snow. “ _Arya!”_

Sansa can hear her name being carried by the wind, and all she can think is _she sounds the same._

Arya dismounts the horse in a jump, and suddenly Sansa is in her sister’s arms, and they are crying. 

Two wolves wept in a bed of snow, and the sun shone for them.   

“Sansa, Sansa, Sansa,” Arya whispers, again, and again and again. “ _Sansa.”_

Arya’s embrace feels like heaven, and Sansa hopes never to be parted from it. For all that she has suffered, Sansa had never thought to see Arya again and it had pained her more than any of Joffrey’s beatings, or Ramsays touch. To think that she would never bear witness to her sisters smile, or hear her sisters laughter again had been as agonizing as the wounds they had inflicted. 

Arya has been a ghost for so long that Sansa could scarcely believe that she was in her arms, and thinks she will simply drift away given the chance. And so Sansa holds Arya tighter, and whispers her name in the hope that Arya shall know it, for it has been so long and Sansa can barely even recognize the girl that had once been her sister. 

When Sansa pulls back, and cups her sister’s cheek, she sees her father’s eyes and her mother’s smile glaring back at her. Her father had once proclaimed that Arya had the Stark look, and Sansa can recall the envy she had felt at her father’s words. _If she has the Stark look, Papa must love her more,_ Sansa can recall thinking as she had looked in the mirror and saw the Tully looks of her mother staring back at her. 

But now the sight of Arya’s Stark looks is her happiness, and Sansa cannot help but weep at the sight of her grey eyes, and her wry smile. It is when Sansa sees Arya’s hair, chopped at the neck and clumped with mud, that she laughs, for _gods she has not changed at all._

“I have missed you,” Sansa says, before she pulls Arya to her again and ignore the cold that seeps through her skirts. For as long as Arya was in her arms, Sansa thinks she can never feel the cold of Winter again. “Gods, Arya, _gods.”_

Brienne finds them there, together, and takes them back to the Keep. When Arya sees Winterfell, repaired and unburnt, she wails like a babe taken from her mother and Sansa’s arms are her only solace. 

Sansa brings her sister to her rooms, where she commands her ladies to bring forth hot water for a bath. Sansa sends them away when they do her bidding, and strips her sister of her mud coated furs before she helps her into the warm water. Arya is crying still, but her tears have dried and her grey eyes have fixed themselves on Sansa’s hair of red. 

“I never thought I’d see you again, Sansa,” Arya whispers, as if she is scared of saying so. 

Sansa brings a wet hand to Arya’s hair, and tastes salt on her lips as she says, “I always knew I was going to see you again.”

“Did you?” Arya asks, and Sansa cannot help but laugh as she says, “It wouldn’t be like you to die.” 

Arya listens to her words, before the sisters burst into laughter and cry more tears. 

Sansa tells her all she can about these years apart while Arya bathes, and Arya does the same; tales of faceless men, and bloodied needles, and revenge meet Sansa’s ears and she suspects Arya thinks she will cower away from such talk. But she cannot, and when Sansa tells her all of what she has done, there is something burning within Arya’s eyes that is akin to kinship. 

Arya tells her of the Wall, and how she had gone to fight there. Arya tells her of how she had seen Jon before he had gone South, and Sansa wishes that Arya would stop talking then. Arya tells her of how Bran is alive, and beyond the wall, and Sansa wishes to hear no more, for she thinks she cannot bear to hear it any more.

For all that they spoke, Sansa waits for tales of blood and death to pass before she talks of the one happiness in her life. 

“Queen,” Arya says before the fire, wrapped in Sansa’s wolf pelts and looking far younger than what she is.

 _She’s a beauty,_ Sansa thinks stupidly as she gazes at her sister, wondering how she could ever think Arya anything less than beautiful. _She is the daughter of Catelyn Tully, after all._

“It seems stupid,” Sansa admits, looking into the fire as she takes a sip from her honeyed milk. “To wear a crown. For what does a crown give you, when it can so easily be taken away? For what does a crown mean, if you cannot save the people you love?” 

Arya is quiet for a moment, before she shrugs and takes a gulp of her wine. “Jon said you were the best one to wear it.” 

Sansa shifts, uncomfortable at the mention of him. “You spoke to him of me?” 

“Of course I did,” Arya says, and she looks as if she wants to say ‘stupid’ as she once did. But things have changed, and they are no longer children. “I went South with him, before I came back.” 

Sansa wants to ask why she would go South, but then she remembers how Jon had spoken of Arya with the love that he never bore for her when she was his sister. _They could barely be parted by father,_ Sansa thinks bitterly, _so of course she would go with him, than see me._

“Lord Tyrion wrote as much,” Sansa says, not letting the bitterness infiltrate her tone. 

Arya has the decency to look ashamed, then, and Sansa wonders if she has realised how she has neglected Sansa. _She is the only family I have left, and even she preferred someone else._

“I had to go,” Arya says, her grey eyes becoming like the stone of the wall. “Ser Ilyn was being executed.” 

Sansa looks up, her eyes narrowing as her stomach rolls. “Who did it?” 

“Jon,” Arya says, nonchalantly. She looks up then, her grey eyes trapping Sansa’s. “Sansa … in Kings Landing, people say you bore a child.” 

Sansa grips her cup tightly in her hand, so her fingers become claws, and she gives a stiff nod. “Who told you then?”

“Jon asked Lord Tyrion,” Arya admits. “He was the one who told Queen Daenerys that you had an heir. She called her a bastard-” 

“She is _no_ bastard,” Sansa snaps, her voice cruel as she stands and moves away from Arya. Her heart beats like a hummingbird in her chest, and she cannot stop the anger that flows through her. For all that the dragon Queen had taken from Sansa, she could not call her daughter a bastard. “My daughter is no bastard.” 

“Daughter?” Arya breathes, blinking stupidly. “It’s a girl then?” 

“Tyrion didn’t say?” 

Arya shakes her head. “Whatever the imp may be, he doesn’t let others read his letters, no matter how much Jon demanded it.”

To think of Jon was to feel pain, and so Sansa cannot think of Jon demanding information about his daughter from her Lord Husband. Sansa cannot think of what his sombre face might look like now, after near two years parted. Sansa cannot think of what his hands might feel like, callused and rough against the skin of neck. Sansa cannot think of what his lips might taste like, or what his laugh might sound like, or what his smile might look like.

Sansa cannot think of any of those things, for to think of such things was to be consumed by madness and a sorrow that Sansa needn’t be lost in. Thoughts of him were lost in a dark abyss that held only pain, and empty promises, and if she allows herself, Sansa would know nothing but the darkness of these awful depths. 

So when Arya says his name, Sansa cannot think of the man who had, like the others that she had loved, become a ghost to her. Sansa already sees him enough in these walls; she sees him in her daughter’s grey eyes, and in her bright smile. She hears his laughter in the halls, and can feel his touch deep inside her when the moon is highest in the dark sky. 

Jon is nothing but a ghost to her, and sometimes Sansa thinks it would be easier if he had died that day beyond the Wall, rather than made a southern King and married to a white haired dragon. 

“Can I- can I see her?” Arya asks, her eyes wide with an innocence that Sansa thinks looks strange on her. _This is a woman whose hands knew death more than the Stranger._

Sansa feels her heart lurch painfully at her sisters ask, and she nods – allowing a smile to slip onto her lips despite the thoughts of ghosts and shattered hearts. 

Lyarra is sitting atop a rug of furs when Sansa opens the door to her nursery, and lights up when she sees her mother.

“Mama, Mama!” Lyarra says, reaching for her. 

Sansa grins, swooping her babe up in her arms despite the heaviness to her body now. “And how is my Lya today?” 

“Good,” Lyarra says, nodding as a raven curl falls into her eyes. There is a shine of auburn to it, in the sun, but it is still Winter and so Sansa rarely sees her daughters auburn shine. She is so like him it hurts her, but she is also so like her father that it _cannot_ hurt her. 

“Lyarra,” Sansa says, hiking her daughter higher on her hip as she turns to where Arya stands. “You remember what I told you of Mama’s family? Of Grandfather Eddard, and Grandmother Catelyn? Of my sister, Arya?” 

Lyarra is not old enough to remember, so she simply giggles and clasps onto her mother’s wolf locket. Her eyes, wide and grey, are so beautiful that Sansa is glad she is so Stark, but there are times – so many times – when Sansa can see the violet beneath them. _And if I can see them, so can they._ “Mama, woof.”

“Woof is playing with his friend, my darling,” Sansa says, running a hand over her daughter’s curls. “Lyarra, this is Mama’s sister. This is Aunt Arya, Lya.”

Lyarra turns her head from her mother, and stares at Arya with wide, grey eyes. Lyarra is not a shy baby, but there are not many in Winterfell or Winter Town that she does not know, and so she shies away when Arya steps forward with the same wide eyes. Lyarra snuggles into the crook of her mother’s neck, fisting at her gown and Sansa sighs, shaking her head.

“Don’t be silly, sweetling,” Sansa says, for she needs her daughter to know her family. “This is my sister, Arya. This is Mama’s sister.”

“She’s scared of me?” Arya asks, her voice small with hurt. 

Sansa shakes her head, stroking her daughters curls as she tries to pry her face from her neck. “She is just nervous of new people, see. Once she knows you, she will love you.” 

But Arya is looking away, and her voice is tight when she says, “She looks like them.”

 _Father. Mother. Robb. Rickon. Bran._

Sansa feels a wetness on her cheeks as she nods. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

It is after Sansa hears the petitions that Arya tells her. 

“I wrote to Jon,” Arya says, the words bursting from her. 

Sansa freezes; her hands stalling from where they were tickling Lyarra. “Pardon?” 

Arya is brazen as she pushes herself up from the wall and stands before Sansa with her hands on her breeches. “Lyarra is his, and he deserves to know.” 

She cannot say anything. She cannot feel anything. She cannot even feel the air in her lungs, or her beating heart. All she can hear are Arya’s words, telling her of a man Sansa has spent so long pretending is gone and sharing a secret Sansa never imagined him knowing.

Sansa looks to her daughter, who grows more like him by the day, and can feel the fury burning within her at Arya’s actions. She wants to scream, for all that she has lost. She wants to scream, for all that she was promised. She wants to scream, for all that never was, because of Jon and his stupid noble honour. 

She had spent a long time wondering why Jon had broken his promised. In fact, Sansa had spent eighteen moons wondering why Jon had married the woman they called the mother of dragons, before she had come to the conclusion she clung to. Jon was born a Prince, lived as a bastard, and was elected as a King; he was honourable, and he loved her, but promises meant nothing if he couldn’t protect the ones he loved. 

The kinder part of Sansa thinks that the mother of dragons demanded that they marry, or she would burn the entire North, but the cruel part of Sansa wonders if Jon had seen the blazing beauty and had fallen at her feet, forgetting the woman that had warmed his sheets and carried his child.

The cruel part of Sansa had heard of his marriage, and prayed beneath the weirwood that it would be barren, and a wasteland of woe. The cruel part of Sansa wished that her black haired Prince had died astride the dragon he tamed, to save her from the cruelty of knowing that he was alive, and well, and married to another woman. 

But then Sansa sees him in Lyarra, and knows she could never truly wish any of those things on Jon. For whatever promises he may have broken, and for whatever empty words of love he had given her, she loved him. 

But it was easier when she thought that he didn’t know. It was easier to think that Jon had no knowledge of Lyarra, for if he had no knowledge of the girl she had born, then Sansa could allow herself to think that if he knew, he would come to Winterfell and claim them both. But if he knew, and remained in Kings Landing, Sansa would feel nothing but pain and would be lost to that abyss she tried so hard to keep herself from. 

 _What if he tries to claim her as an heir,_ she wonders, fear controlling her, _what if he takes her from me?_

 _“_ You had no right,” Sansa breathes, gathering Lyarra in her arms and turning to look at Arya with a glare. “Do you know what you have done?” 

“Jon deserved to know,” Arya says, her expression pinched with pain. Sansa expects her sister to grow with disgust, or shame, but there is none of it and Sansa wonders if Jon has confided in her. “Gods, Sansa he loves you-“

“ _No_!” Sansa screeches, the words so painful she cannot even be in the room with her sister when she says them. “No, you do not speak of him. Not here, not in my Keep.”

“He married her for you,” Arya says, angered. “And you sit here, wearing the crown he gave you, and cannot even tell him that you bore his child.”

“He will have many children with his white Queen,” Sansa sneers, holding Lyarra tighter. 

Arya laughs, the sound taunting Sansa. “His Queen is barren, Sansa. He married her because Aegon wouldn’t, and because the North would burn if he didn’t.”

Sansa close her eyes, and can feel her heart bleeding. For all the time that had passed, her pain was still his smile, still his laughter and still his touch. She did not want to hear of his goodness, or of why he had broken his promise, for it is much easier to think that he does not love her any more than to think he does. 

“But he didn’t come back,” Sansa says, coldly. “You may be my sister, Arya, but I am Queen here. Jon has no power in the North, and while he may have ‘given’ me the crown, I have kept it. Do you think he should have worn it in the first place, Arya? He wore that crown because I allowed him to, sister – because I am a Stark and I do not betray my family.” 

Arya’s face grows cold. “And I have?”

“You have betrayed your Queen,” Sansa says, her tone sharp. “Corresponding with the King and Queen of the South falls to the Queen, and the Queen only. You may be Princess here, but I am the one who wears this empty crown, and you know nothing of what it means to wear it.” 

Arya lashes out, stepping forward in her fury, “I know that you pay little attention to truth, and that you delude yourself by thinking that Jon does not care for you. He is her father, and Lyarra deserves-“ 

“Lyarra deserves safety,” Sansa snaps. “And safety is not knowing him. I am her mother, and I know what is best for her.” 

“Best for her is not living in a castle of lies,” Arya spits, “for god knows I cannot live in it any longer.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Arya leaves in the night, and Sansa does not weep. 

Instead Sansa wears her empty crown, and does what Queens do. 

It is on Lyarra’s second name day that the raven comes, and she must go South. 

“Do you think it wise, your grace?” 

Sansa is kneeling beside her daughters bed when Brienne speaks, and Sansa sighs. “No. But if I refuse again, I fear I will be putting my lands at risk.” 

“King Jon will not allow it,” Brienne murmurs, but they both know that it matters not what King Jon may say to his white Queen, whose blood bore fire and whose touch bore death.

“King Jon does not rule his wife,” Sansa murmurs, staring down at the little girl that slept peacefully beneath her furs. Lyarra’s hair had grown, and now tumbled down to her chin in wild curls. Sansa spent so many hours playing with the wildness of the curls, and thinking of the man who had left two years prior. “Lord Tyrion wishes to marry again, and the High Septon needs me to return to Kings Landing to annul our marriage but i- I’m so scared, Brienne.” 

Brienne’s harsh features folded into softness, and she steps forwards, her eyes warm. “Sansa, I will be there and will keep you safe from harm.” 

“My father had so many guards,” Sansa says, her gaze returning to her daughter, “but they still took his head.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lyarra screams when she goes to leave and Sansa wants to weep. 

“Mama!” Lya sobs, clutching to her mother’s skirts. “Mama, please!” 

Sansa kneels before her babe, who had grown so much and came face to face with the grey eyes of her family. “Now, you must be strong, Lyarra. I know you shall miss me, and I shall miss you too, but I must go.” 

“Why?” Lyarra pouts, her lips wobbling with agony. “Why do you have to leave?”

“Because I am the Queen, and the Queen cannot do as she likes,” Sansa says boldly, before she draws her child into her arms and presses a kiss to the crown of her daughter’s head, whispering, “but I shall miss you like the moon misses the sun, and like the stars miss the sky, and I shall think of you every moment I look upon them.”

Sansa pulls back, and pushes a wild curl behind her daughter’s ear. “It won’t be so bad, I promise. Lady Mormont is here, and so is Lord Manderly, and you like Lord Manderly very much. He gives you far too many sweet meats, so you must not think it all bad, sweetling.” 

“But you shall be gone,” Lyarra whispers, choking on a sob. “And I love you best, Mama.” 

Sansa smiles brightly, and hopes the smile deceives as she wishes it to, for if Lyarra saw her mother cry, Sansa thinks she would never let go. “And I love you, my beautiful, brave wolf. But I have your ribbon, and so I know I shall have you with me always. Now, have you said goodbye to woof?” 

Lyarra nods, and Sansa smiles sadly, before she presses another kiss to her daughter’s chubby face. Sansa wishes, then, that she was just a simple lady, with a simple life and a simple husband. She wishes for simple love, and simple death, for simple wants and simple needs. She wishes for the crown to be gone, and for her babe to not have eyes that sometimes resemble amethysts. She wishes for a man with raven hair and grey eyes to hold her at night, and to whisper her name as he did in her dreams. 

Sansa wishes for a great many things, but life does not grant the wishes of little girls. For all that she had lost, she had gained more back, and Sansa supposes it made it more bearable. For although she had found her happiness in her daughter, it did not make up for all that she had lost; the pain that came with the death of those she loved did not cease because of her newfound happiness. Sansa had once wondered, when she was but a girl and still had fresh thoughts of the bloodied steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, if she would ever be released from the prison of her grief.

 _I am better for her,_ Sansa thinks as she holds Lyarra tightly, knowing that this would be the last time she sees her daughter in many moons. 

“Be good,” Sansa says, standing and beckoning Old Nan to hold her. “And I will write to you.”

Sansa did not look back, for she would never mount her horse if she saw her daughter’s tears.

 

* * *

 

 

Kings Landing is the home of her pain. 

Her Lord Husband meets her beyond the gates, with a warm smile and a weathered face. Sansa thinks him so changed, and wonders if the years had been as cruel to him as they had been to her. 

“My Lady Wife,” He announces before banners of red, and gold, and Sansa feels her stomach roll as he presses a kiss to her hand, before bowing. The last time she saw him, she was running for her freedom. And now, she wore a crown. “My Northern Queen.” 

“Lord Tyrion,” Sansa says, offering him the smallest of smiles. For although he was never unkind to her, Sansa can still recall how his pudgy fingers had felt on their wedding night; how his lips had tasted bitter when they were forced on hers, and how Joffrey had laughed when she was wedded to him. _For all that Tyrion is kind, I was a child and they forced me to marry someone I thought a monster. They stole my cloak from me, and wrapped me in theirs, and called me Lady Lannister with a smile. They made me his wife, and told me that I would only go home if I gave him a son. They were monstrous, and I can never feel comfortable around him._ “I am sorry I have not been a more attentive wife.” 

“And I am sorry you were brought back to this place,” Tyrion says, lowly, and Sansa feels her stomach roll. “I know you did not wish to return.” 

“It is done,” Sansa says, “and I must endure.” 

 _“_ As you always have, my Queen Stark,” Tyrion says, before he smiles. “Kings Landing is waiting to view the Queen in the North – shall we go?” 

As Sansa rides through the city gates, she remembers riding through them many years before, as a girl with a father.  The gates close, and Sansa remembers how they had remained shut for years, trapping her in this hellish place that promised nothing but pain. As her procession passes the ruins of the Great Sept of Baelor, Sansa can only see the blood on the steps and how she had begged for mercy. As she passes the streets near the docks, Sansa can only feel how those men had touched her, and can still feel her fear. 

As Sansa rides through this city of bones, where the dead haunt and her pain sings, she wonders if she will ever be able to rest while she is in this graveyard. But the people look to her with wide eyes, staring upon the beautiful red headed Queen in the North who wore wolf pelts and a crown of iron and whose skin resembled the snow of her land. _So different,_ they whisper, _from our White Queen._  

It seemed it was not only the North that remembered, for Westeros had paid her great respect. But Sansa cannot help but look at the people who blew her blessings, and wonder if they had been the same people who had cheered for her father’s head. 

When Sansa sees’ the red spider on Aegon’s Hill – the prison of her childhood – she wonders if she can truly bare this torture. _I would endure a thousand nights with Ramsay if it meant I would never have to return to this god forsaken place._

Tyrion escorts her to the throne room, and Sansa can hear her men following behind her. There had been plenty of Northern men that had volunteered as escorts for their Queen, and Sansa could not help but feel a burning love for her lands. _For the North remembers it’s pain, and forgets none of its daughters._

Brienne is behind her, and her steps are as quiet as she is, but Sansa is glad for her presence for if she had to face this pain alone, she would surely become as quiet as the little bird she once was. _But I am no little bird. I am a Queen; ice made flesh and no dragons can scare me._

“It will be fine,” Tyrion says as they stand outside the doors, and Sansa wonders, truly, how much her Lord Husband knows. 

 _It will not be fine,_ Sansa thinks as the doors open, and her body goes rigid, _it has not been fine since I was ten and two._

The throne room is filled with courtiers – Lords and Ladies who had travelled from far and wide to catch a glimpse at the Queen of Winter. And Sansa knows most of them, for they were the same people who had watched her being beat in this very room. _Do you remember how my blood stained this stone,_ she wonders as she stares at them, _or can you only see my crown now?_  

But it is the throne of iron swords, and who sits upon it that demands Sansa’s attention – a white Queen in every sense. And beside her sits a man Sansa once knew, once loved, once grieved. Sansa wishes to stare at him – to gawk at a man whose memory had faded. Sansa wishes to see analyse his face, and see the similarities’ he shared with her daughter. Sansa wishes to run to him, and to allow her body to fall into his arms. Sansa wishes for it to be as it once was.  

But she does not buckle.

She cannot.

So Sansa walks, escorted by the Hand of the Queen, and with ice in her eyes. _I am the Queen in the North, with thousands of men at my back, with the blood of the First men and I will not cower for any dragons._  

If Ghost senses that his master is before him, he does not leave her side. For it has been years since he has seen Jon, and Sansa can see his eyes of red staring at the ribbon Lyarra had wrapped around her wrist. _While he loves Jon, he lives for Lyarra,_ Sansa thinks, as she swallows her fear and thanks the Old Gods that he does not run to him, for Sansa knows that if Ghost was to abandon her now, she wouldn’t be able to walk any further. 

They bow as she walks, and Sansa wants to bask in it. _For they had laughed at me the last time I was here._

The dragon Queen is just as beautiful as the songs claimed she is, and Sansa wonders if this is why Jon never returned to her. But then Sansa is not the girl she once was, who would have gazed at beauty such as hers with such lust. _I am a wolf, ice made flesh with fire as hair. I am the sight they gaze upon._

Sansa can feel his gaze burning into her skin as it once had, but she cannot meet his eyes. Instead, she turns her gaze to Queen Daenerys – eyes of ice meeting eyes of amethysts. _Just like Lyarra,_ Sansa thinks as she stares into the purple gems. 

“The Queen in the North,” Daenerys says, a broad smile consuming her face. “The South welcomes you with open arms, and with warmth. Welcome.” 

Sansa gives a barely detectable nod, for she is nothing if not courteous. “Your Grace, I thank you for your hospitality.” 

“Ah, but we dragons are nothing if not hospitable,” Daenerys says, smiling broadly before she stood and stepped down from the steps. “I have been waiting to meet you for many years now.” 

 _I wish you would have met me in the North, where I belong,_ Sansa wishes to say. “As have I, your grace.”

Daenerys lips twitch at that, before she turns to her husband. _Jon._ Sansa’s heart squeezes painfully, and she feels nausea that threatens to spill from her rise up her throat. As soon as he steps forward, Sansa can almost feel his touch, so long ago – how his lips had tasted, how his hands had felt, how he whispered his love. She knew every part of him, and yet greeted him as a stranger.

“My husband,” Queen Daenerys says. “King Jon.” 

“Your Grace,” Sansa says, her eyes on the stone as she whispers a title she knows he hates. 

He steps forward, this ghost of a man she once knew, and whispers her name, “San-“

“And his brother, the Prince of Dragonstone,” Queen Daenerys says, cutting him off. Sansa did not think she would be grateful to the white Queen, but she is, for she thinks if she was to hear her name on his lips once more, she would become nothing but the grief she bears and no Queen could be lost to such a sorrow.

“Prince Aegon,” Sansa acknowledges, before she turns to Princess Arianne, who is heavy with child, “and Princess Arianne.” 

Prince Aegon bows before her, and presses his lips to her hand. “Your grace, what an honour it is to bear witness to your beauty today. I feared it would be in the North forever.” 

Sansa cannot help it then, for the words leave her in the iciness the North has given them, “If I had my choice, your grace, I would never have left the North. But alas, my husband calls me here.” 

“And what a grateful husband I am,” Tyrion says, his face almost nervous. “Your grace, I-“

“I wish to retire to my rooms,” Sansa says, abruptly interrupting what Tyrion was to say. “I have journeyed a long distance, as have my men. If I could request rooms for them, with bread and mayhaps some wine …?” 

Daenerys purple eyes burn with something that Sansa cannot determine, before she nodded. “As you wish, your grace. I do wish to ask you for your presence tonight when I dine, if that is agreeable?” 

“As you wish, your grace.” 

Sansa can barely breathe when she is lead to her rooms, but it is only when the door is closed on her chambers that she slowly allows herself to unravel. She can still see his eyes of stone, gazing at her with the fire they always held, and oh how they made her tremble with sorrow. For every time she thought of him, how close he had been, how his voice had sounded, she thinks of the man that had held her close and had whispered his love. 

 _But that man died the moment he went to the Wall,_ Sansa thinks, thinking of how she had cried when she had read his letter, _and had married a white Queen._

“That went well, I think,” Tyrion says, and Sansa wishes he would go away. 

“Liar,” Sansa says, not bothering to look at him as she pours herself some wine.

“Yes, I haven’t changed that much,” Tyrion answers as she passes him the wine. Sansa thinks his eyes will hold judgement when they meet hers, but instead they hold pity. “The way the King stared will only make the whispers worse.” 

“The whispers?”  

“They whisper that the King has two Queens; a white Queen, and a red Queen. His lady wife, and you, your grace.” 

“Who says I am his Queen?” 

“Your grey eyed daughter, my lady.”   

Sansa shifts, uncomfortable. “She is a Stark – of course she has grey eyes.” 

Tyrion laughs, but ignores what she says. “Daenerys has wanted to meet you for a very long time, Sansa.” 

“Does she know why I refused?” Sansa asks. “Does she know anything?” 

“She knows you bore a child,” Tyrion says, sitting down. “But she is no fool, Sansa.” 

Sansa scoffs, and drinks slowly. “We are in a city of fools, husband, and she is their Queen. I would be fool to think she was one.” 

“Lord Baelish did indeed say you were different,” Tyrion remarks, and Sansa flinches. “I never did trust littlefinger.”

“As you shouldn’t,” Sansa murmurs, staring at her view of the city. “Too many people trusted him, and too many people died, your nephew included.”

“Ah, but was that not a blessing?” 

Sansa does not say anything, instead looking over the city and seeing the missing Sept of Baelor. “Tell me, Tyrion, and tell me plainly – did your sister suffer?”

“I believe so.” 

Sansa does not say anything, for the knowledge that Cersei Lannister had screamed when she had died was nowhere near as satisfying as she wished it was. And so instead she simply stares at the remains of Kings Landing, and wonders when the pain will ever stop. 

 

* * *

 

He stares, and she wishes he wouldn’t.

“You have a daughter, then?” Daenerys asks, taking a sip of her wine as she is served. “A little Princess?” 

“Yes,” Sansa says, and hopes the white Queen will not ask any more questions. 

“We almost hear nothing of the child,” Daenerys says, smiling softly. Sansa has heard much about the White Queen – that she was breaker of chains, and that she was as warm as she was kind. But another Queen had been beautiful, and Sansa had thought her kind as well – until she declared her father a traitor. “How is she?” 

“Well, and growing, your grace,” Sansa says through a tight smile. “We have just celebrated her second name day.” 

“Your sister says she is called Lyarra,” Aegon ventures, with a beautiful smile on his lips. If Jon looked like his mother, Aegon looked like his father – with silver locks and violet eyes. _Jon is a dragon in a wolf pelt while Aegon is a viper with scales._   

“Yes,” Sansa says, her chest growing tight at the mention of Arya. “Is Arya in Kings Landing?” 

“She is in Storms End,” Arianne says, her dark eyes narrowing. “But she must have written that, your grace?”

The tone the Dornish Princess uses is accusatory, and Sansa purses her lips – annoyed at the insinuation. But she will not lie – not in front of them – and so she tells them the truth, “My sister did not agree with a decision I made, and so we have not talked for a little while.” 

“Jon says if Arya is the sun, Sansa is the moon,” Daenerys says with a laugh, and Sansa wishes she would not laugh – for to hear such words is to be wounded, again and again. “As different as day, and night.” 

“My sister has the Stark looks,” Sansa says with a nod. “I look more like my mother, in truth.” 

“But you are more like your Lord father than Arya is,” Jon says, and his voice shocks her into silence.

She cannot move, or think, or speak when she hears him speak to her and so the table falls silent. She has not heard his voice in nearly three years, and she cannot stop herself from clenching at the arms of her chair. 

“Ned Stark,” Daenerys says sadly, as she captures her husband’s hand. “You have received his bones, I trust?” 

Sansa does not wish to speak of her father’s bones at this moment, but she cannot ignore the question and so she says, “Yes.”

“What befell him was an injustice,” Daenerys begins, looking at Jon with a softness that causes Sansa’s nails to dig into her palm. 

“What befell my family was injustice,” Sansa murmurs, her mind going to the thought of her mother, and brother. _But you can’t think of them,_ Sansa thinks, the wine thick as it went down her throat. 

“There is peace now, at least,” Daenerys says, warmly looking to Sansa. “Is it getting warmer in the North?”

“It is still very much winter,” Sansa says, rubbing her hands together as she yearns for the cold. In the South, there is a chill to the air but the sun beams down on the city and it feels so much like it once was. Sansa would take the snow of the North over the warmth of the South any day she could. “But it is not as harsh a winter as it could have been.” 

“It must be awfully dreadful,” Aegon says with a laugh, taking a swig of his wine. “Constant snow. Jon says you might be locked in the Keep for weeks.”

Sansa stares at the dragon prince with a frost. “I suppose it might be dreadful to a Southron Prince.” 

The table falls quiet once more. 

“I once asked for warmth and the Southern sun,” Sansa muses, before she stands. “But that was before I went South. I’m afraid I must retire early, as I feel out of sorts.” 

“Shall I have a Maester sent for you?” Daenerys asks, kindly. 

“No, no,” Sansa dismisses it with the wave of her hand. “I should sleep. It was a long journey.” 

“Sleep well, your grace,” Daenerys says, nodding her head as Sansa starts towards the door. 

As soon as she is free from the Queens solar, and in the comfort of her own, Sansa cries for the first time in two years. 

xxiv. 

The Godswood is the only sanctuary she finds in Kings Landing.

The air has a chill, but it is nothing compared to the Northern winds and so Sansa is free in her nightgown and furs. The Godswood is nothing like Winterfell’s, with an Oak rather than the weirwood. _The Old Gods have abandoned the South,_ Sansa thinks as she sits beneath the oak, toying with the ribbon that Lyarra had gifted her on the day she had departed. 

Sansa thinks of her girl then – of her wild, raven hair and her Stark eyes. She is the Stark that Sansa could never be, and yet she was Sansa’s in every sense. Sansa could see it, when she smiled, that Lyarra had inherited her smile – her mother’s smile. And it pained her so to know that her mother would never look upon such a glorious smile.

 “You have not changed.”

She wishes he would not have come.

Sansa closes her eyes, as her nails dig into her palms. “Leave me, Jon.” 

“Arya told me,” He says, pained. “She’s mine. But of course I knew she would be mine – how could I not?” 

“Go, Jon,” Sansa whispers, tears escaping her as she places her head to lean on the Oak trunk. “You cannot speak of this here.” 

“Then where can I speak of it?” He demanded, striding toward her with grey eyes blazing and with his cheeks flushed. “You will not look at me – will not even acknowledge me.” 

“And why should I-“ 

“I am the King-“

“You are not my King,” Sansa snarls, whirling around to look at him. Yet she does not see the angered King that had been speaking to. Instead, she finds the man she had loved and had lost, and he is smiling at her. 

“There,” Jon whispers, his face growing sad. “That wasn’t so hard.” 

Sansa can barely stand there; she is so angered. She walks towards him with the intent of returning to the Keep, but as soon as she brushes against him he has caught her by the arm and is pulling her back. 

“Sansa, please-“ 

“What!?!” Sansa near screams, exasperated. “What do you want?” 

“I want to talk to you,” Jon says, his eyes softening as he brushed away her tears. “I just to talk to you.” 

Sansa’s chest heaves with anger as she stares into his eyes of stone. She has known this man – has loved this man, has kissed this man, has laid with this man – but he is a stranger now and she doesn’t know how to talk to him. He is a ghost of a man she once loved, and Sansa doesn’t know how to talk to him, how to be around him, how to know what to do. 

 _He is wearing the skin of the man I love, and yet he is so different I cannot even see him there,_ Sansa thinks, tears blurring her eyes. 

And then his eyes soften, and suddenly he is there – her Jon, who spent hours in her bed and who whispered his love when the moon shone above. 

Sansa wants to tell him it all then – she wants to tell him about Lyarra’s laughter, and how she adores Ghost. Sansa wants to tell him of how intelligent she is, and how she squeals with delight when it snows. Sansa wants to tell him of how she dances, on unsteady legs but with such enthusiasm. And mostly Sansa wants to tell him of how loved she is, for the North is Lyarra’s and Lyarra is the Norths. 

But she cannot. 

“I have nothing to say,” Sansa bites out, ripping her arm from his grasp. “Goodnight, your grace.” 

“Sansa, _please,”_ He pleads as she walks away, but she cannot look back. “Please, Sansa, just speak to me. Remember, Sansa, that the last time we were in a Godswood, we were wed. Does that not mean anything to you?” 

He walked away last time. 

This time, she does.

 

* * *

 

Her marriage is annulled, and Sansa smiles. 

No longer a Lannister, and never a Bolton; _only a Stark._

“They are throwing a feast in your honour,” Tyrion says, and Sansa can only shudder. 

“I do not wish for a feast,” Sansa says, her needle stilling. “I only want to discuss matters with your Queen, and then I shall return North. It is a month’s ride, and my daughter needs her mother.”

“I have told the Queen of your wishes,” Tyrion says, “but if you are to discuss the Frey’s, all of Westeros shall know that the South and the North are friends.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sansa is dressed in a gown of silver, a crown of iron, and with ribbons as chains. 

The Lords and Ladies of Westeros gawk at her as if she is once again the little bird they had once known her to be, but she does not buckle under their stares. She is a Queen, and she holds the North. They are snakes, in long grass with venom at their fangs, but she is not their victim. Not anymore.

The ladies were gowns of emerald and sapphire, with jewels in their hair and envy as their masks. The men, rather, wear just as fine a cloth but instead their pride is their cloak and greed their crown. Sansa wonders how could she ever could have wished for feasts in the South, when they held nothing but vanity and vitriol. She would much prefer the North, with its warm hearths and loud music; her _home._  

She smiles, and toasts, and acts as a Queen should, but when Sansa see’s the Queen of the South in her gown of gold with bells in her hair and with Jon on her arm, she feels nothing like the Queen she is and everything like the girl she once was. She wonders if her sorrow is as clear on her face as it is in her chest, but she hopes not – she hopes her smile is as convincing as her crown. 

“I know you do not care for feasts,” Daenerys says as she watches the dancing, smiling to Sansa, “but Jon says you do have quite the affinity for dancing. You even got him to dance, I recall and Gods know that must have been a sight.” 

The way she speaks of Jon is as a wife speaks of their husband, and Sansa wishes that she could do the same. But she cannot, for Jon is not her husband nor her King. He is hers – the white Queens. But Sansa wishes to tell the dragon Queen of that night – the first night that Jon laid his lips upon hers. But she cannot. 

“I do not dance anymore,” Sansa lies, and she can see Jon’s head swivel in her direction. _He is listening,_ she thinks. 

“What a pity,” Daenerys says, turning back to the dancing. “Have you seen the dragons yet, my lady?” 

“No,” Sansa says, quelling the fear that began to bloom in her belly. “I fear they would not like me.” 

“On the contrary,” Daenerys says, her eyes narrowing slightly as she wrapped her hand in Jon’s, “I believe they would like you quite enough.” 

“Dance,” The Queen in the South proclaims, placing Sansa’s hand in Jon’s. “It is your duty as my King.” 

“Your grace-“ 

“Please,” Daenerys says, smiling. She is warm, and kind, and Sansa wishes she was not – she wishes she was like Cersei, with all the falsities of a false jewel. “It is the duty of the King to dance with our guest. And it would please me.” 

Sansa wants to run, but she cannot, for in Jon’s hand she is place and she cannot run from him. Not now.

“I do not dance, my Queen-“ 

“Please,” Daenerys asks, her expression softening as she pleads. “Jon has spoken to me so often of your dancing, and I so wish to see it. It would please me greatly, and it would be a very happy way to show that the South and the North are perfect friends.” 

And so they dance.

Jon is stiff, and Sansa is cold. 

“Will you speak to me?” Jon whispers as they spin. 

“I have said all that I wish to,” Sansa says, her skirt twisting at her legs. “And your wife is watching.” 

“My _wife,_ ” Jon hisses, “is nothing but my wife. Sansa, you are …” 

“Your whore?” Sansa spits, narrowing her eyes as she turns.

“ _Everything_ ,” Jon breathes, shaking his head. “I have loved you-“

“No,” Sansa says, pulling away as he begins to say things she has been wishing to hear for three years. “No, don’t do this.” 

“I’m not lying,” Jon says, holding her to him as the strings softened. His eyes were burning as he stared at her, and Sansa wonders if she will ever see such a beautiful sight again. “You are everything. I love you. I have always loved you-“ 

Sansa cannot listen to anything else. 

She curtsies, and can feel the eyes of the court on her as she returns to the dais. Jon disappears into the crowd, and through the doors, but Sansa cannot watch him. She has watched him leave too many times. 

“My husband stares at you,” Daenerys murmurs, her goblet at her lips. 

“Many men stare at me,” Sansa replies, quelling her unease. “It is not strange, your grace.” 

“Yes,” Daenerys says quietly, looking down at her hands. “You are quite beautiful, although you would know that, wouldn’t you?” 

Sansa thinks of her mother, and how she knew she was beautiful. “My mother was a beauty.” 

“And so must you be,” Daenerys says. “They call us the sun, and the moon – you are the sun, and I am the moon, ice and fire, white and red.” 

“I am no sun, your grace,” Sansa says, shifting.

“No,” Daenerys agrees, her eyes on the dancers. “He calls you the moon.” 

 

* * *

 

Whispers follow her, and Sansa feels but a girl once more.

But unlike that time, so long ago, Sansa does not listen to what they hiss – they are vipers and are no match to a wolf. 

She finds him in the Godswood. 

“You left,” Sansa growls, her rage a fire. Jon turns at the sound of her, surprise coating his features. Ghost is beside him, and just as he always does, he comes to her side. “You left me to fight a war, and then married another woman. You gave me a crown in a letter. And now you call me the moon, and your wife calls me the sun, and I am but a lamb in a lion den.” 

“Sansa-“ 

 _“-No_!” She shouts, tears flooding over her cheeks. “No, you do not get to love me when you have married her.” 

“I wanted you,” Jon says, stepping forward. “I wanted to marry you before I left, and you refused-“ 

“Because no one knew who you were!” Sansa cries, exasperated. “But as you married a Queen in a Southron Sept, I laid in a featherbed of blood and gave life to your child.”

“I didn’t want it to happen like that,” Jon whispers, shaking his head. “You were my only thought while I battled, and then I was forced into another war. Instead they called it a marriage, and the field I waged war on was this fucking court.” 

Sansa bites into her lip – her teeth ripping at the thin skin. “You gave me a crown, and I gave you a child. What does your wife give you, Jon? Do you love her?” 

“I love _you_ ,” He seethed, crossing the Godswood to cup Sansa’s cheeks. “I have loved you since I saw you that day with the arrow. I have loved you since you made me King. I have loved you for years.” 

“But-“

“And every time I see you, I want to hold you,” Jon says, brushing away a fallen tear. “I love you, Sansa, and I want to be with you-“ 

“You have a wife-“

“The only wife I have I married before a weirwood tree in Winterfell’s Godswood,” He says, before his lips find hers. 

His lips came down onto hers like a storm, and she can’t pull away. Kissing him is like being set alight, and cast into a river – left only to drown. Kissing him is snow on bare skin; like fire to flesh. She pushes away, but he holds her tighter – his lips devouring hers in a hungered embrace. 

It reminds her of nights in winter, warmed only by the body that held her. It reminds her of uncertainty, and desperation, and death. For all it reminds her of the love that Sansa had for Jon, it reminds her of the death that hung over her. 

Sansa broke free, her hands coming to her tingling lips as she tasted salt. “Sansa-“ 

“You chose to marry her,” Sansa says, cold.

“I chose to save you,” Jon says, desperately. “I chose for you to wear the crown. Everything I have done is for you.” 

Sansa turns, confused before she realises. “You married her for the North to remain independent.” 

“I- yes.” 

“I always dreamt that you would tell me you left for the North,” Sansa says, her body aching. “I dreamt that you would ride through the gates of Winterfell, and say that you still loved me. I dreamt that you would tell everyone you had married another Queen so I would be safe.” 

Sansa looks down at the ribbon at her wrist, and her silver skirts, and sighs. “But that is a dream, and you will never return to Winterfell.”

“The North is my home,” Jon croaks. “Sansa, Winterfell is my _home_.”   

“It could have been,” Sansa says, closing her eyes as she inhaled the scent of salt. Waves crashed against the walls of the Keep, and Sansa opens her eyes to gaze at the stars above. She thinks of Lyarra, and how she laughs. She thinks of Jon, and how when he smiles at her, everything is so much better. “What do you want from me, Jon?” 

Jon looks pained as he steps toward her. “I want … I want … you.” 

Sansa meets his eyes, and smiles sadly. “I’m sorry.” 

Jon chokes on his laughter. “When have we ever gotten what we wanted, Sansa?” 

Sansa is quiet for a moment before she decides to tell him. “She is beautiful, and exactly like you. Her laugh, and her eyes – she looks exactly like father, like you, like Arya. But she has my smile.” 

A ghost of a smile slips onto Jon’s face. “Is she loved?" 

“By the whole of the North.” 

Jon looks pained as his face folded in anguish. It was strange, to see a heavily bearded King cry, but it was not so strange when it was Jon. For Sansa knew his pain, and not even tears could console it.

“I want to see her, Sansa.” 

Sansa looks to the sky, and thinks of her lord father. She thinks of how he had cared for her; how his voice was kind, and how his eyes held nothing but love for her. She thinks of the doll that he had once gifted her, and which Lyarra now played with. She thinks of the years past, where he would take her riding through the Wolfswood or allow her to sit on his lap during grievances. And then, as it always is when she thinks of her father, she remembers the blood stained steps of the Great Sept of Baelor.

Sansa wishes to say no – to refuse his request, but she knows she cannot. For all the pain she had suffered, she still loved him, that she was sure. For all the sorrow she had cried for, Lyarra knew none of it. 

“You may visit,” Sansa says, finally. “And she shall know you.” 

“Shall she know me as her father?” Jon asks, his eyes hard. 

Sansa cheeks feel cold against the wind as she says, “You shall have it all, Jon. A white Queen, a red Queen, and a child with the name Stark. Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

“Not like this.” 

 

* * *

 

 

The white Queen is ferocious when next to her dragons.

Sansa faces the beasts with a heavy stomach, and a fluttering chest, for she thinks of the girl with grey eyes and her smile, whose face sings _wolf_ but whose blood cries _dragon_. 

“I know; it can be quite frightening.” Daenerys laughs as she rounds the dragon pits – a smile on her face. “But you mustn’t be scared – Drogon adores Jon, and Jon, well, Jon has love for you.”

Sansa’s throat tightens as she stares at the smaller woman, wondering how much she knows. Is she an enemy, or a friend? _She is no friend, Sansa. She is a dragon disguised as a Queen._ “I do think you’re overestimating the love his grace has for me, my lady.” 

“Please, Sansa, call me Dany,” The Queen murmurs, smiling as she takes a slab of meat from her lady’s maid. “But, no, Jon has not lied to me about his love for you, your grace.” 

Sansa shifts, uncomfortably. “Your grace, please-“ 

“You came to this city on my invitation,” Daenerys says, quietly. “Do you think I don’t know my own husbands heart?”

Sansa felt like no Queen then – not while she was underneath the white queen’s gaze. “I was under the impression many wives did not know their husbands hearts-“ 

“Many wives are not Queens,” Daenerys says, her voice sharp. “But you would know what it means to be a Queen, wouldn’t you, your grace? You know your duty, as I know mine.”

Sansa looks to the dragon before her, and purses her lips. “I know duty, your grace. I have always done my duty.”

“Yes, I know.” Daenerys laughs, taking another slab of meat in her hands and feeding it to Drogon. “Both my husband, and my hand insist you are a true Stark and being a Stark means you are bound by honour.” 

“Yes,” Sansa murmurs. “But I am also a Tully.” 

“Family. Duty. Honour.” Daenerys turns to look at Sansa, and cocks a brow. “But what little family the Tully’s have – there is only your Uncle, remaining?” 

“Yes, your grace,” Sansa says. “And he has only just been released by the Freys.” 

“Ah,” Daenerys murmurs, “so that is what you wish to speak about?” 

“It is why I came to Kings Landing, your grace.” 

Daenerys throws her head back, and laughs – a chortle from deep within her stomach. “Is it? I was under the impression that you came back for other reasons.” 

“I have a duty to my people, and to deliver my people’s justice,” Sansa says, cold as she watches the white Queen move away from her. “Most of the North’s forces were slaughtered at that wedding – many of my noblemen’s kin. Heirs, your grace, were slaughtered with their King-“ 

“And you ask that I deliver them to you?” Daenerys asks over her shoulder. “An entire house for the slaughter? And in any case, I have heard Lord Walder died over a pie.” 

Sansa follows slowly, watching as Daenerys skirts collected the dust of the pits. “I ask for his heirs, then, and all those that participated in my family’s demise.” 

“I am a peacekeeper, Sansa.” Daenerys laughs, wiping her hands on a rag before she looks to Sansa. “These seven Kingdoms of mine have now become Six, and to keep those six, I cannot kill an entire house. They will call me mad-“ 

“No.” Sansa steps forward, her eyes cold as she raged. “They will call you the weak Queen, who could not deliver justice.” 

Daenerys stills, and the smile that had alit her face slowly dropped. “I am the mother of dragons, and the defeater of the-“ 

“You are a great warrior,” Sansa murmurs, “but you will be a poor Queen if you do not deliver the Frey’s to my justice.”

Daenerys is silent as she wipes her hands on the rags, her eyes of amethysts staring at the stone of the pit. Sansa is unsure of what the little Queen will say, for her face is folded in a calm that only the Stranger could wear. Daenerys lifts her eyes as she turns back to Sansa, her eyebrows furrowing. 

“When I first married him, I did not want him,” Daenerys says, moving to stand beside Sansa as she looks into the pit. “And I do not think he wanted me either. No, I think my husband wanted a girl that was kissed by fire – a girl that he named Queen.” 

Sansa’s hands clench over the railing at Daenerys words, but she stays silent.

“I have loved another before,” Daenerys continues, her eyes staring at her children, “and I remember how it felt to have him taken from me. But Jon swore that he would be faithful before the seven and-“ 

“Jon does not keep to the seven.” The words tumble from Sansa’s lips before she can stop them.

Daenerys laughs, and yet this time, it sounds mocking. She rounds on Sansa, with a great smile on her lips as she shakes her head. “You think I do not know my husband, Sansa? You think to know more than I do about my own husband? Just because you love him does not mean you are the only one that knows him.” 

Sansa wants to protest, but she cannot because she is no longer simply a girl. She is a Queen, now, and Queens cannot weep.

“I am sure you know him very well, your grace,” Sansa says, for it is the only thing she thinks to say. “But I knew him once-“

“Once,” Daenerys muses, her eyes growing cold. “I will not be shamed by my husband, Sansa.” 

“What are you asking?” Sansa snaps, her cheeks growing warm and her eyes narrowing.

“Jon will know no Queen but me,” Daenerys says, her hands clenching the railing. “I will not be shamed by a consort – not by Jon, the Prince that was promised.” Daenerys laughs, her chest heaving as the words tumble from her, “They already whisper about it. They say he loves you – they sing songs of your love. They sing of a maiden with hair kissed by fire, and a wolf that rides a dragon. They sing of a child born of Snow, and made a Princess. Do you know what else they shall sing?”

Sansa does not answer. 

“They shall sing of the dragon Queen, cruel and unkind,” Daenerys continues, a tear escaping her and running down her cheek. “Or mayhaps they shall sing of an unwanted wife, who grew cold in the shadow of a red Queen.”

“I have refused him,” Sansa tells her, trying to retain her composure. 

“Ah.” Daenerys smiles. “So I suppose that shall mean he shall stop loving you?” 

“I-“ 

Daenerys rounds on to Sansa, and grabs her hand – her eyes wide and her gaze raging with the anguish of her pain. “I did not wish to love him, Sansa, but I fear you did not wish to either.” 

Sansa looks away from her, and to where Daenerys held her hands – her nails digging into her skin. Daenerys laughs again, a giggle that seems to childlike to come from a Queen. 

“Duty,” Daenerys says. “We were speaking of duty, weren’t we?”

“Yes.” 

“You are a Queen,” Daenerys says, her eyes meeting Sansa’s. “And a mother. Tell me, which do you feel more loyal to?” 

Sansa’s throat tightens at what Daenerys was saying. “My lands are my duty, pride and honour. But my daughter is my heart, and joy,” Sansa says, pulling away from Daenerys and holding her hands at her chest. 

Daenerys raises her head, and nods. “Does she look like him?” 

Sansa stills, before she looks into the dragon pits to where Drogon was kept. “She looks like my father.” 

“She will be a great beauty, then,” Daenerys muses, her face consumed with a faraway look. “It’s simply a shame she is a bastard by birth.”

“She is a Stark,” Sansa snaps, her rage burning as she faces Daenerys. “A Princess, and my heir. She is no bastard.”

“You may have given her your name, Sansa, but that does mean she is not a Snow,” Daenerys says, her voice cold as she shrugs. “For as much as you’ve tried to keep her a secret, you have failed. Everyone knows of her, and who her parents are.”

“She is not my shame,” Sansa says. “I did not keep her from anybody.” 

“Do you know the story of Lyanna and Rhaegar?” Daenerys says, linking her arm through Sansa’s and beginning to walk up the stairs and to the gardens.

“Which one? Robert Baratheon’s version, or the Targaryen one?” 

“The true one,” Daenerys says, motioning to a bench that overlooked the Cliffside. They sat beside one another, with the smell of roses surrounding them. “When I was a girl, my brother, Viserys, told me about our brother Rhaegar with such adoration that I mistook him for a God.” Daenerys laughs, shaking her head. “I remember asking my Septa if Rhaegar was with the seven, and of course she told me that he was not a God, but simply a man. See, Viserys told me all about our brother and his victories – of how he was the last dragon, and how the rebellion was won with trickery and curses.”

Daenerys looks to the seas as she continues, “But it was not until I was older that I learned the truth. I was told of everything – of how Rhaegar married Elia in a Sept bathed in gold, and she gave him two children. And then they I learnt of the Tourney at Harrenhal, and how my brother rode from his wife and placed the crown of Love and Beauty on a Stark girls head. They say she was just a girl – but four and ten when he did it. I have asked everyone that knew her about what Rhaegar saw in Lyanna Stark, and do you know what they all say?” 

Sansa says nothing.

“They say, Lyanna Stark was a beauty,” Daenerys says. “But they also say that she was wild – that she would rather ride horses than wear a crown. She was just a girl, who didn’t want to marry the man they chose for her, and so she ran away. She wasn’t mysterious, or charming, or a witch – she was just a girl, and they made her into a song.”

Daenerys points to a monument of the sun – golden, and shining, it sat atop the gardens on a white pillar. “Do you see that? The sun?” 

“Yes.”

“I had it made for Princess Elia,” Daenerys says, her face growing sad. “Everyone always spoke of what a tragedy it was, that Rhaegar Targaryen took Lyanna Stark and raped her. But that was a lie – they ran away together, and the world suffered. And Elia … well, no one so much as spoke of her but her family. But do you know what they did to Elia Martell, Sansa? Rhaegars true wife, married in the Seven and the mother of his heirs?”

“Yes,” Sansa says, her chest constricting painfully as she thinks of the story. When Septa Mordane first educated her about what happened to Elia Martell, Sansa had wept in horror. She could not imagine knights – kind, honourable _knights_ – slaughtering two babes and their mother in the name of war. She had been so horrified, in fact, that she was sure Septa Mordane was lying to her and so she had confronted her father. 

“ _No, Sansa.”_ Her father had sighed, putting down his quill. “ _What happened to Elia Martell was a great injustice.”_

 _“So … so they really killed her?”_ Sansa had asked. “ _And … and …”_ She could say the other word, for it was to rotten.

“ _Sometimes, I forget you are free from all that has happened,”_ Her father had said, before he had cupped her cheek. “ _Always remember, Sansa, that sometimes the people we think are good can do evil, and the people we think evil can do good.”_

“The only man I heard of that spoke her name after she was murdered was her brother,” Daenerys ventures, shaking her head. “She was his wife, and the mother of his children, and yet her name has become lost beneath Rhaegar and Lyanna. The only song poor Elia Martell ever received was Gregor Cleganes sword when he cut her down.” 

Daenerys was quiet for a moment, before she turns to Sansa. “Elia Martell was a Princess of Dorne, and Rhaegar Targaryen’s true wife. Elia Martell was the mother of dragons, and the only thing she is remembered for is how they killed her.” 

Sansa listens to the wave crash against the cliff face as she looks up at the sun monument. “I am not Lyanna Stark.”

“And I am not Elia Martell,” Daenerys snaps, standing up and blocking the sun from Sansa’s view. “I will not have my husband’s shame made into a song, and I will not have my kingdom singing your name.”

“What do you want me to do then?” Sansa asks, exasperated. 

“I want you to leave,” Daenerys says. “I want you to leave the South, and never return.” 

Sansa stands, her hand coming to where her scarf sat around her shoulders. She wraps the thin material around the halo of her head, protecting her skin from the sun before she turns to the white Queen.

“Are you asking me to leave, my lady?”

“I am ordering you to leave,” Daenerys snaps, cold. “I cannot have my husband looking at you like he does. I sit beside him, and he will not look away from you. I have given him everything he has asked, and still he wishes for something I cannot abide by.”

Sansa stands up, aggravated that Daenerys would think that she would conduct an affair with a married man. _I have honour,_ Sansa thinks, and yet her stomach churns in a way that she cannot explain. _He has kissed me, and for a moment I did not want to pull away._  

“I have not had him in my bed for three years.” 

Daenerys laughs, and turns to the ocean. “But he loves you and for as long as he loves you, he will not love me.”

Sansa opens her mouth to say something, but the words become stuck in her throat. For all that Sansa can speak of honour, she knows that deep within her, she does not want Jon to ever love his wife. The thought is so wrong that she feels guilt at the mere glimpse of it, and yet she cannot think of a world where Jon loves another – where he looks at another the way he looks at her. 

For all the pain she has endured, Sansa realises as she looks at Daenerys that she does not want Jon to ever stop loving her. And suddenly, she is consumed by the need for him; for his lips, for his words, for his touch, for his warmth. For all that she wants to honourable, and good, Sansa realises that honour and duty is nothing compared to love. 

It is a gut wrenching, awful realisation. To realise that no duty, or honour could halt her need for Jon was enough to make her stomach churn. Sansa can hear Septa Mordane in the depths of her mind, reprimanding her for such wanton and ugly behaviour. _To want a married man is to sin to the seven,_ Septa Mordane says in her mind, and it makes Sansa want to throw herself from these cliffs.

 _Nothing can stop my love for him – no vows, or duty, or honour could ever stop me loving him,_ Sansa thinks, _and I wish I could find something that would. For loving him meant pain, and sorrow. For loving him meant an empty embrace, and cold lips. For loving him meant loneliness, and hardship, and shame._  

“I will leave willingly,” Sansa says with a nod, adjusting her scarf around her hair as she met Daenerys gaze. “But you will let him come to me, if he so chooses.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“In my Kingdom, he is not your husband,” Sansa says, her courage soaring as her heart hammered in her chest. “In my Kingdom, he is welcome to see _his_ daughter.” 

Daenerys’ eyes flashed. “You want my husband to see his bastard daughter? It is his shame-“ 

“My daughter is no shame,” Sansa snaps, stepping forward as she narrowed her eyes. “Remember, your grace, that your husband is also a bastard – legitimized or not – and that you are talking to a Queen.”

“A Queen whose crown I gave her.” 

Sansa steps forward again, leaving only inches between her and the little Queen. “No, your grace. I earned my crown through battle. You should remember that I too can command armies, and while I may not have battled the dead, I have done war. I will return North, and never come back here, but I want assurance that the Freys will be brought to justice – a trial at the very least.” 

“And my husband?” 

“Can choose what he wants,” Sansa says, stepping away from Daenerys as she sighed. “You are a good Queen, my lady – fair, and just, and kind. But I have loved him for years, and he is my child’s father, and I never even got to say goodbye.” 

Daenerys looks away, her face pinched in anger. 

“I love him,” Sansa says with a nod, “but I do not want to cause you shame. Truly, my lady, I do not ever want to cause you shame. I will return North, and I shall not ever come back South and there shall be no songs, and no whispers. You shall have him, my lady, in every way.”

“I shall be Elia, you shall be Lyanna, and he shall be Rhaegar.”

“You are not Elia Martell,” Sansa says, thinking of the red Lannister coat and a Tower in Dorne that smelt of dead roses, “and I am not Lyanna Stark.”

“If you are not Lyanna, then why does he act as Rhaegar?” Daenerys breathes. “Will it always be this? Will a Targaryen man always choose a Stark woman?” 

Sansa looks away. “I don’t know, your grace.” 

“I should hope not,” Daenerys says. “For every time a Targaryen chooses a Stark, they both end up … dead.”  

Sansa takes a step back, her eyes grazing over the white haired Queen. Sansa thinks of Lyanna Stark then; of a girl that looks like Arya with winter roses in her hair and with sorrow as a mask. Sansa thinks of her father – her poor father – who went to Dorne to find his sister, and instead found a corpse. Sansa thinks of Rhaegar Targaryen, whose blood stained the Trident fork and whose father thought to burn them all. Stark, and Targaryen, dragon and wolf, ice, and fire, the sun and the moon; death, and life. _Maybe we were never supposed to love each other,_ Sansa thinks, _when we touch, we poison each other and leave corpses in our wake._

But Sansa is not Lyanna Stark. 

_I am not wild, or black haired, or grey eyed. I am not a sword wielding she-wolf. I am a wolf born from the river, with fire as hair, and I am no Lyanna Stark._

“I will tell my men to ready their horses,” Sansa says, fingering the ribbon around her wrist. “And I will leave the South. But I want the Freys.” 

“There will be a trial.”

“And it will be under the Norths jurisdiction,” Sansa snaps.

Daenerys is quiet for but a moment, before she gives a nod. “As a sign of my friendship.”

Sansa stares at the white Queen, and wonders how she could call them friends. _She calls us friends,_ Sansa thinks, _and so I wonder what she calls her enemies._

“Then it is done.”

“Then it is done.” 

 

* * *

 

“Sansa! Sansa!” 

Sansa can hear the doors to her chambers slamming as Jon enters, and Jeyne frets as his footsteps echoe through the room. 

“My lady?” Jeyne asks, frightened. “Shall I let him in?” 

The water ripples as Sansa opens her mouth, and yet she cannot speak before Jon pushes the door to her bedchamber open. Jeyne squeaks with surprise, before her skin reddens and she stumbles out his courtesies as she curtsies. Sansa pushes herself lower into the tub – her gaze catching Jon’s burning one.

“Leave us,” Jon orders, sparing no glance for Jeyne.

Jeyne scurries out of the bedchamber, leaving the two together again.

 _Siblings, to cousins, to lovers, to parents, to strangers,_ Sansa thinks, her flesh hot beneath the water of the tub. _What are we?_

“You are leaving?” Jon demands, his eyes narrowing.

Sansa nods. “Yes, your grace. In the morning.” 

“Did she make you?” Jon asks through gritted teeth, his hands clenching at his side.

“She did not-“

“TELL ME THE TRUTH!” He shouts, his voice echoing through the room. 

Sansa clenches onto the side of her tub as she looks to the man she loves. _He is so different,_ she thinks, looking to his doublet of black velvet and to his trim beard. _He looks older._  

“Yes,” Sansa murmurs, sweat dripping from the back of her neck to her chest. “If you must know, your grace, your wife does not appreciate your fondness for me.” 

“Fuck my wife,” Jon spits, stepping forward. “You do not have to leave.”

“I have already agreed,” Sansa says. “I agree with your wife, Jon. This place has no room for two Queens.”

Jon looks away, clenching his fist as he shakes his head. “I want you here – I- I need you here, Sansa.”

“You made your choice,” Sansa says, looking to where her cloth is before she wet it and began cleaning her neck. “And we all have to live with it.” 

“No,” Jon says, striding forward to the bathtub and throwing his leg over the side over the tub. “No.” 

The water ripples as Jon gets into the bath, and Sansa watches with wide eyes, opening her lips to protest before he is above her and his hands are grasping at her face. And then his lips are on hers. 

Kissing him is like breathing once more, and she finds herself wondering if she has been suffocating for all these years. Sansa becomes desperate as the kiss – for it is everything that they have felt. Angry, and aggressive, before it softens and becomes longing, loving, and so lustful.

“I love you,” Jon whispers as his lips go to her neck, sucking at her skin. “I love you Sansa.” 

“ _Jon_ ,” She breathes, her hands going to his doublet as she begins to undress him. “ _Jon, Jon, Jon.”_

His name is a prayer, his body is a shrine and she was the worshiper. As his skin becomes bare, she sees the familiar flesh. There are new scars, of course, and so she kisses each and every one. Long, jagged, torn bits of flesh now adorn Jon’s chest and Sansa can do nothing but gaze at them, for they were evidence of how close he had been to the Strangers grasp.

Sansa’s hands wrap themselves around the back of his head, and she gazes at Jon as she smiles. “I have missed you.” 

His lips capture hers once more, but the kiss is soft, and longing. “I have missed you,” He says, and presses another kiss to her lips, “so much.” 

She does not push him away when he begins to unlace his breeches. She does not protest when his lips are on hers. She does not close her eyes when he palms her breasts. She does not do any of those things; for he is hers once more, and she cannot feel the hatred, or resentment. She can only feel the warmth of his kisses, and the affection of his tight embrace. 

When his fingers dust around her naval, she can feel the warmth pooling in her core – burning hotly in anticipation. And yet Jon does not move any closer to her, for his grey eyes are on hers.

“Sansa?” 

She nods, knowing what he is asking. It is in his eyes, after all. “Please, Jon.” 

Sansa gasp as his fingers probe at her slick folds, and she arches her back – sensitive to his touch.  She has missed his touch, and so when he enters her with his fingers, he does so slowly, painstakingly slow and with a shuddering gasp.   

She wants more of him – all of him – and yet he is slow as he teases her with his fingers.

“Jon,” She pleads, “ _please_.” 

When he unsheathes himself from his breeches, and steadies himself above her, Sansa can feel the heat from his body radiating over her. She makes a wild, mewling noise when he enters her, and she supposes everyone would hear it, it is so loud. He is slow and steady – inch by inch he pushes into her, and Sansa closes her eyes as gasp after gasp escapes her body.

She is stiff at first, with her muscles clenched, but Jon is slow and halts himself as he presses a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Sansa,” He breathes, and it is one word that allows her to relax. 

Her nails dig into his back as he thrusts into her, scratching at his skin as his hand finds her breast. Mewling gasps and pleasured sighs become desperate screams as they find the pressure builds within them, before it bursts – spilling an immeasurable pleasure through them both. As she screams with surprised delight, Sansa can hear the roar of the dragons and Ghosts howl.

 _Dragons, and wolves, together once more._

As Sansa tries to recapture her breath, and Jon shakes above her, his arms circling her body, she finds the emotion clawing up at her throat and spilling from her. Trembling, Sansa finds sobs spilling from her lips – her cries becoming hysterical as she claws at Jon’s chest. 

“Sansa, Sansa,” Jon breathes, holding her face in his hands. “Sansa, what is it?” 

“I can’t … I can’t …” Sansa gasps out. “I can’t breathe.” 

Jon’s eyes widen, and he flips them around, so that he is leaning on the tub and she is on his chest. Jon sits them up, so that she is between his legs as he wraps his arms around her. His lips at her ears as he whispers her name, and presses kisses to her neck. “It is alright, my love. It is alright.”

Sansa claws at his hands, closing her eyes as she tries to regain her breath. “I … I don’t know what’s happening.” 

“You are fine,” Jon murmurs, “you are safe.” 

Sansa lets out a cry, tasting salt on her lips as Jon buries his face in the crook of her neck. “I have missed you,” She cries, her words stumbling over themselves.

“As have I,” He whispers. “Nothing could stop me loving you.”

“Perhaps it should,” Sansa whispers, blinking away her tears. “Perhaps we shouldn’t love one another.” 

“The world will burn before that ever happens.”

They do not speak much more, simply sitting in each other’s company. He takes her again, one, two, three times in fact, each time becoming hungrier and hungrier. Soon, whispers of love become violent curses and words of filth as they fuck – years of repressed anger becoming moments of harsh intimacy. 

And when the moon hangs high in the sky, and the promise of what tomorrow brings is heavy between them, they speak of what must come.

“I shall come North,” Jon says, with a finality it scares her. 

“Not immediately,” Sansa says, her hand on his chest. “You have a wife, Jon. We cannot shame her so obviously.”

“I care not for my wife.”

Sansa’s chest tightens. “She cares for you, though.”

Jon looks away, and to the window as his arm tightens around her waist. “I married her for you. For the North’s safety.” 

Sansa bites back her words. “You traded my heart for my safety.” 

Jon turns back to her, and cups her cheek. “I did what I had to do to win a war that would destroy us.”

“And I hated you for it,” Sansa whispers, pressing her nose into her crook into his neck. “She shall know that you were here tonight. Did anyone else see you?” 

“No.” 

Sansa shakes her head, smiling at his naivety. _Still Jon._ “The walls have eyes, my love.” 

“I do not care if she knows-“

“But I do,” Sansa says. “You may not care for her, but I have spoken with her and I will not see her shamed publically. When you come North, you shall tell her you are visiting the Wall and overseeing its reconstruction. You shall see her you are trading in the Gift.”

“But-“ 

“But that will give you a valid reason to be there,” Sansa murmurs, rolling onto her back. “Jon, she is your Queen. A Queen that you chose. You must have some respect for her-“ 

“Respect?” Jon chortled. “I am in your bed, and you are talking to me of respect?” 

Sansa winces, and rolls away from him. “Jon?”

“Yes?”

“When you are not with me …” Sansa says, her heart clenching in pain. “I want you to be with Daenerys.”

“Sansa-“ 

“Please, Jon,” Sansa says, feeling the tears rolling onto her cheeks. “I cannot be your Lyanna.” 

“Sansa,” Jon hisses, sitting up and throwing his legs over the bed. “You are not my mother – I am not my father-“ 

“But they will still call us as such,” Sansa says, wiping away her tears as she blinks into the darkness. “When you are in the North, you are mine. When you are in the South, you are hers.” 

“Sansa-“

“Those are my terms,” She chokes out, biting down on her lip to stop herself from sobbing. “You chose her, and you shall live with her.” 

 

* * *

 

“We wish you a safe journey, your grace, and many happy returns for this harvest season.” 

Sansa stares at the white Queen, and the beaming smile on her lips. _Her words drip with poison, and yet she smiles._

“I thank you for your hospitality, your grace,” Sansa smiles, but does not bow her head. She will not bow to the white Queen.

Sansa turns to where Jon stands, his jaw locked and his eyes staring in front of him. Sansa’s hands clenched at her skirts as she smiles, and inclines her head. “Your grace, I thank you for your hospitality and kindness. I will not forget it.”

“My lady,” Jon whispers, and she moves away.

It feels like she is tearing her heart in to pieces as she steps away from him, and adjusts her fur coats. She can hear the crowds outside the courtyard, cheering and talking, and does not wish to see them – not yet – and not when she feels like this.  

Sansa turns to where Tyrion Lannister stands, and she cannot help the smile that comes onto her face then.

“My winter Queen,” He says, bowing. “I am sad to see you leave.”

“That I doubt,” Sansa murmurs, her lip twitching. “You are welcome in the North any time you so wish, Lord Lannister, though I must warn you that the North still has quite a hatred for lions.”

“Where does it not?” Tyrion chuckles, pressing a kiss to her hand. “Be safe, my Queen. And give your girl a kiss from me?”

“Never,” Sansa chuckles, and smiles down as Tyrion looks to where her luggage was being loaded. 

“Have you-?” 

“Yes,” Sansa says, pressing her hand to her chest and making the paper shift beneath her bodice. “It is close to my heart, my Lord.”

“Thank you,” He says, his cheeks flushing. “Godspeed, my Lady.” 

Sansa nods, and moves to her horse. Her guard helps her mount, and from her white steed, the court that tormented her seems so much smaller. Sansa grips her reigns, looks to Jon one last time, before she kicks her steed into a gallop and is gone from the Kings Landing. 

 

* * *

 

She has never been this far South. 

Storms End is not a place she had ever wished to go – mayhaps when she was betrothed to Joffrey did she fancy a journey to her betrothed’s family lands, but since then, she has not thought of the Stormlands. 

The Lord of Storms End does not greet her when her party arrives, but Sansa did not think he would. The Lord of Storms End had gone from a blacksmith to a Lord, and so she does not take offence to the lack of a reception.

Instead, it is Ser Gilbert Farring that meets her – his face reddened with embarrassment and twitching beneath her gaze. Sansa supposes she must look a sight – her red hair pulled back into a braid, dampened by the rain and dressed in her lavish furs. 

Sansa dismounts with the help of Brienne, and steps into the mud – crossing the courtyard with impatience as the rain falls hard. 

“Ser Gilbert, I assume?” Sansa asks, as he stumbles into a bow.

“Your grace,” He yells over the storm, “We are honoured to have your presence grace our-“ 

“Shall we move inside?” Sansa asks, cutting him off. “I do not wish to catch ill.” 

Storms End is a great keep, whose hearths burn brightly and whose workers stare at her with the widest of eyes. Sansa looks at the intricate engravings of the Grand hall, staring at the Storm throne and wondering if Robert Baratheon ever sat atop it. _Mayhaps Lyanna would have been by his side if things were different._

 _“_ I thought Arya would have been here to welcome you, Sansa.”

Sansa nods. “I did too, Brienne. But she doesn’t read any of my letters – why would she read that one?” 

Brienne sighs. “But shouldn’t she-“ 

“We will speak about it when she is here.”

“Your grace?” Sansa glances over her shoulder to stare at a ladies’ maid, who brought a tray of steaming drink.

“Is it warm milk?” Sansa enquires, and the ladies’ maid nods. “Brilliant – I so need something to warm me up.” 

As Sansa crosses the room to take it, the ladies’ maid drops into a shaky curtsy and Sansa winces slightly at the fear that was etched into the ladies’ maids face. Sansa takes the milk, and sips it quietly before she begins to take off her wet furs. “Please, may you put these to warm by the fire? And will you guide my Knight to her bedchambers, so she may wash and dress in warm clothes?” 

“Yes, your grace,” She stuttered, and Sansa brushed her blue skirts – thankful that they were not soaked as well. Sansa took a seat beside the throne, and glanced to where the ladies maid was preparing her furs.

Brienne objects. “My Queen-“ 

“Please, Brienne,” Sansa says with a kind smile. “Even the best of knights are not immune to a cold.” 

Brienne nods, and the Ladies maid calls for someone to guide Brienne to her chambers. 

“What is your name?” 

The Ladies maid looks up, wide eyed. “I-I- Cat, your grace.” 

“Cat?” Sansa smiles. “My mother’s name was Cat.”

The girl nods. “Yes, my lady, I know.”

Sansa looks to her milk, wincing at the reality before she asks her next question. “Cat, may I ask you a question?”

Cat nods, adjusting the furs before the fire. “Yes, my lady.”

“Does Princess Arya spend her time in this keep?”

Cat flushes brightly, and looks away from Sansa. “Ugh … yes, my Lady.” 

“And does she have her bedchamber?” Sansa asks, taking another sip of her milk.

“Yes, of course, my lady,” Cat says, looking away from Sansa. 

Sansa cannot help but smile then. “But does she even use them, Cat?” 

Cat stills, her hands frozen on the furs. “I-“ 

The doors open then, and Sansa looks to the two that come to greet her. One, tall and broad, black bearded and blue eyed, Sansa would know him from anywhere. She thought, for an instant, that she was looking at Robert Baratheon – of course a younger, thinner version of him – until she realised that this must be, in fact, his bastard.

Arya is no different than the last time Sansa saw her, but it has been over a year and a half. Mud is on her riding leathers, and her hair is wet against her face – cut sharply at her chin. Sansa meets the grey eyes of her father, of her daughter, of her lover then, and wonders why a Stark would ever wish to be in Storms End.

They both bowed, low and deep, and kept their bow. Sansa was surprised, really, to see Arya bowing before her. _Arya struggled to bow for Robert Baratheon, and yet she is bowing to me?_

Sansa stands from her seat, and places her goblet onto the table. Her boots tapped against the stone as she rounded the table, and stared at where they stood. 

“You know,” Sansa begins, “I did not expect a grand welcome, but I did expect some welcome, Lord Baratheon.” 

They stand from their bow then, and Lord Baratheon looks scolded. 

“Your grace-“ 

“I did send a raven of my coming,” Sansa says, standing before them. “About a week ago, I believe.” 

“Yes, we did receive it-“ 

Sansa purses her lips. “Never mind, I am here now.” 

Arya’s eyes were cold, but curious. “Why are you here, Sansa?” 

“You do not answer my ravens, nor did you come to Kings Landing at Jon’s demand,” Sansa muses, turning her back to them and returning to where she sat – sipping at her milk and warming by the fire. “I had to come, if I so wished to speak with you.” 

“Did you not think I didn’t want to speak to you?” Arya snaps, crossing her arms across her chest as a petulant look overcomes her face. “I did not answer your ravens for a reason, Sansa.”  

“That is harsh, sister.” Sansa smiles despite herself, and looks to where Gendry Baratheon is shifting awkwardly. “Sit, please, Lord Baratheon. I will not bite, unlike my sister has had you believe.” 

“Sansa,” Arya sighs, exasperated. “You cannot just-“

“No, Arya, you will not lecture me,” Sansa snaps, her eyes narrowing as she stares at her sister coldly. “I have come South, far South than I ever would have wished to come and all for you. For my cold, ungrateful, intervening sister who deems it her business to correspond with Kings on my behalf when she has _no_ business doing so. If you have forgotten, sister, that the anger here is mine and the guilt should be yours.” 

Arya looks reproached, before she grows angry. “Sansa-“ 

“No,” Sansa snaps. “No, you do not get to speak now. I have been kind, and patient, and I have written my apologies and to what do I get in return? Silence.”

Arya’s jaw locks, and her fists clench at her side but Sansa continues. “Do you know what I saw, Arya? I saw our father’s head being cut from his body, and I wore chains for years in that prison they call a capital, while you ran away and left me there. I then saw our youngest brother being shot down by the arrows of my husband, whose scars I still and will always bear. And then when you come back to me, after everything, you betray me at the first moment and to a man I love, and then you run away in the dead of the night.”

“And so, dear sister, I have come to Storms End as the Head of your house,” Sansa says, calming down. “You do remember your house, do you not? House Stark?” 

Arya steps forward, her face twisting in anger. “Bran is the head of our House-“

“BRAN IS GONE!”

The Hall is silent, with only echoes of Sansa’s voice left. Arya flinches, and Sansa turns her face from Arya, her chest tightening with her anger. “Father is gone,” Sansa says, her eyes on the fire that was burning, “as is mother, and Robb, and Bran, and Rickon. You have two members of your family left, Arya – Lyarra, and I.” 

“And Jon.” 

“Jon is not your brother,” Sansa snaps, turning back to her and narrowing her eyes. “For as much as you wish that I would have died instead of Robb, or Bran, or Rickon, or Father and Mother, I am the one that remains and I am the Stark in Winterfell. So as much as you may think of Jon Targaryen as a Stark, he is not. I am. Lyarra is. And I will not have my only sibling ignore me.” 

Arya does not respond – instead, hot tears spill over her lids and onto her cheeks. Sansa rolls her lips between her teeth, and stands – feeling her own tears pooling in her eyes. 

“I do not wish you would have died instead of anyone,” Arya says, her voice quiet. “I would never wish that Sansa.” 

“Do not lie,” Sansa spat, her chest heaving as she turns away from Lord Baratheon and Arya. “Do not lie to me, Arya. I have spent the last month with liars, and vipers, and dragons and I cannot have my sister lie to me.” 

“I am not lying,” Arya snaps, aggravated by her sisters insistence. “I would never want you dead.” 

“Then why have you refused to speak to me?” Sansa rounds back to Arya, and narrows her eyes. “Why do you refuse every letter? I have apologised, I have reasoned, I have pleaded, I have scolded. I have done everything in every letter and still you do not even send a response.” 

Sansa laughs, despite herself, and cocks a brow. “So I send you another letter stating my intentions to come to the Storm Lands, and I am met with the castles Castellan. You are a Princess of the North, Arya – you may not think it, but there are whispers as to why you are not marrying a Northman. I have obligations, sister, treaties and loyalties, and men who wish to be rewarded, and I have no answer as to why my Princess spends all her time in the South.” 

Arya looks panicked, until Sansa continues. “Which is why I have come. If you would have read any of my letters, Arya, you would know why I’m here.” 

“And why is that?”

It is the Lord of Storms End that speaks, and Sansa smiles warmly at him. “My Lord, tell me, what is it like to have a Princess of the North warm your bed?”

Gendry Baratheon turns so red that Sansa thinks he will combust, and Arya complains so loudly that Sansa laughs. 

“It is alright,” Sansa says with a laugh, taking a sip of her milk. “I have come here as the Head of your House, Arya, to inform you that you shall not live as such for much longer.” 

“Sansa,” Arya snaps. “I do not care what your will is, but I shall not leav-“ 

“Marry?” 

Surprise overcomes Arya’s face, and she takes a step back. “What?”

“You are no mistress,” Sansa murmurs, smiling tightly. “And I will not have the same rumours follow you as they do me.” 

“I do not wish to marry,” Arya snaps, crossing her arms across her chest. “I never have.” 

“As long as you stay unmarried, I will be receiving offers for your hand,” Sansa explains calmly. “They grow angrier, and more impatient with every refusal. If you are married, they will ask for something else.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like me,” Sansa says. ‘And then I can truly refuse them.” 

They are both silent, the Storm Lord and his Northern Princess, sharing looks between them. Sansa sighs, rubbing her hands together as she purses her lips. “I shall be here for a sennight. I want to know by the morrow.” 

 

* * *

 

“I do not wish to marry.”

“Then you shall suffer the consequences,” Sansa says, signing off the letter and turning to see Arya in her shift and furs. “I thought you would be happy.” 

“I’m not you, Sansa,” She says, crossing her arms. “I never wished for marriage.” 

“And I’m sure your bastard never wished for Lordship,” Sansa says with a laugh. “Mine certainly didn’t.”

“Yours?” 

“Jon,” Sansa explains, tapping a cloth with some face oils and beginning to rub them into her face. Arya does not speak for a moment, before she sighs.

“So you have made up?”

“We have spoken,” Sansa explains. “I am still angry at what you did.” 

“I knew you would be,” Arya says, going to the bed and sitting down. “You did hold a grudge.”

Sansa chuckles. “I know. I still do.” 

The sisters are quiet for a moment, before Arya says. “If I refuse?”

“Then you refuse,” Sansa says with a shrug. “And I will have to deal with man after man asking for your hand.”

“But I am spoiled,” Arya says, confused. “I thought that would mean that they wouldn’t want me?”

Sansa halts in her routine, and turns on the chair she sits – staring at how Arya is sitting, childlike and wit her grey eyes looking at her feet, unsure. _She looks like a child, young and naïve. “_ If they cared, they would not ask.”

“But I am no maiden.” 

“And neither am I,” Sansa says, looking to her sister through the mirror. “But they do not care. They care for power, Arya, not a tight fit.” 

“Sansa!” 

Sansa laughs at her sisters scandalised voice, and turns in her chair – standing to sit on the bed beside her, mimicking her position. Arya looks as if she is thinking, her face contorted in thought and concentration. 

“If I marry him,” Arya whispers, “will I have to stay here?” 

“You, and your husband will always be welcome in the North,” Sansa says with a smile. “I will even gift you some land, and a Keep. But you will have to speak to Lord Baratheon about that – this is his seat, after all.”

“He wants to stay,” Arya murmurs, rubbing her hands together. “But he says I may do as I wish – that if I marry him, I may travel and go as I please.” 

Sansa feels uneasy about that promise, so she simply places her hand on Arya’s shoulder. “It may change after you swell with a babe, Arya. He may change.” 

“I know that,” Arya says, fidgeting. “I don’t think I’d be a good mother.” 

“No one does,” Sansa murmurs. “But we all make do.” 

“I kill people, Sansa,” Arya snaps. “Not raise them.” 

“You survived,” Sansa whispered, narrowing her eyes. “You survived, and that is more important than being soft or warm or any of those things that you might not think you are.”

“But i-“

“-should do as you see fit, sister,” Sansa murmurs, moving a curl from her face. “If you wish to marry him, marry him. If you do not, do not. I offered my blessing if that is your wish. I came here to give my blessing, and I have given it. I will not make your choice for you.” 

Arya is quiet, before she lets out a sob. “I wish they were here.” 

Sansa is quick to pull her into her arms, and nod. “I do too. I do too.” 

 

* * *

 

They marry in the Godswood. 

Sansa gives Arya away, in a borrowed gown, with winter roses in her hair and with a bridal coat with a wolfs head. 

They say the words, and Sansa watches as Arya Stark becomes Arya Baratheon, and it breaks her heart.

 _I am the only Stark left now._

 

* * *

 

Sansa pushes her horse into a gallop when she sees the grey walls of Winterfell in the distance. 

It has been three months since she has seen her babe, but when Sansa rides into Winterfell’s courtyard and sees her girl, whose hair is a little bit longer, whose height is a little bit taller, and whose smile is so much wider, she cannot help the laughter that escapes her.

“My Lyarra,” She says as she dismounts, jumping from the horse. “My own heart!" 

Lyarra giggles wildly as the courtyard sweeps into bows, and her mother runs toward her. As soon as she is in Sansa’s arms, Sansa feels a calm come over her – inhaling the scent of winter roses and snow in her daughter’s wild raven curls.

“Mama, Mama!” 

Sansa giggles as she presses kisses to her daughters hair, and smiles to all the others. “Rise! I have missed you all!”

It is later, when Sansa watches Lyarra play beneath the weirwood, that she gives the letter to Jaime.

“From your brother,” Sansa explains, watching as her knight tears open the letter. 

Jaime reads the letter quickly, before he sighs. “Hasn’t changed.” 

“No,” Sansa agrees, smiling as Lyarra points to the fish in the pond. 

“Mama, look!” 

“Yes, I see them!” Sansa laughs as Lyarra and Brienne see to the fish. Sansa glances at Jaimie, and sighs. “The Queen has granted me the Freys.” 

“Did it take much negotiating for?”

Sansa laughs. “Just on where I would sleep, Jaimie.” 

“Oh, Gods,” Jaime says. “Is there not enough drama in this country?”

Sansa laughs once more, and brushes her hands on her skirts as she looks to the golden knight. “I fear I have made a mistake, Jaime.” 

“I am not your advisor, my Queen, but I suppose I’ve made enough mistakes to know about them.” 

Sansa does not smile at that. “I have invited Jon here.” 

“The King in the South?” Jaime laughs. “Gods, Sansa, is that why you will not return South?”

“I told Daenerys that I would leave, and never return,” Sansa murmurs, “but that she should allow her husband to come to me, if he so wishes.” 

Jaime laughs. “And what did she say?” 

“Mama, look at woof!” 

Sansa looks to where Ghost rolls in the Snow, and she smiles. “Good woof!”

“Good woof!” Lyarra repeats, and Sansa looks to Jaime.

“Is it a mistake?” Sansa wonders, looking to Jaime. “Have I made a mistake by inviting him here? By inviting him into her life?”

Lyarra laughs wildly as Ghost shakes off the fallen leaves, and Jaime sighs. “She will not know any better, Sansa.” 

“But she shall be hurt,” Sansa whispers. “To one day know that her father chose a white Queen over her mother – to know that we were not married – to know that she is a bastard by birth?”

“But a Princess three times over,” Jaime murmurs. “Princess of the North, Princess of the South, and a Princess of the Rivers?”

“I’m scared for her,” Sansa whispers, her truth spilling from her. “The truth is poison, and I do not want her to be touched by it.”

“But she would have found out anyway,” Jaime says. “And one day she too will know that love makes fools out of us all, and love, like any other poison, won’t rest until it kills you.” 

“One day,” Sansa says, looking to where Lyarra plays, “she will be Queen to a Kingdom that belongs to her. And one day, she will know what her mother did.” 

“There are worse sins then love,” Jaime says. “We are all half people, torn between our duty and our love, our honour and our lust, and forced to wear these crowns we fight for. Every war starts because someone chose the wrong side – Rhaegar chose love, rather than duty, Cersei chose lust over honour and Daenerys chose the crown. They can paint our skin, and seat us on great thrones, but take away the swords, armour and titles, and what do you have? A half person, a broken person, a weak person.” 

Sansa sighs. “I want her to have better than I did.” 

“And she will,” Jaime says, laughing as Lyarra fell over. “She will.” 

 

* * *

 

She has not been home for a week when he comes. 

“Mama, Mama!” 

Sansa giggles as she presses her lips to Lyarra’s neck, blowing large noises that make the child giggle. She is growing big now – with long, flowing raven hair that seemed to be taking some of Sansa’s colour to it. 

“My lady?” 

Sansa looks up at Brienne, who seems panicked. “Yes?” 

“There has been a dragon sighting, just South of Winterfell,” Brienne rushes out, and Sansa pales. “He is coming.” 

Sansa waits in the Courtyard, with Lyarra on her hip, for the sight of the dragon. Ghost grumbles at her side, and Sansa feels her breath hitch in the back of her throat as she sees the domineering figure of Rhaegal in the sky – blocking the sun from sight as he lands a few miles from Winterfell, causing the castle to shake.

 _Breathe,_ Sansa thinks, _just breathe._

“Mama, was that a birdie?” Lyarra chats in her ear, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Was it a birdie, Mama?”

“No, sweetling,” Sansa presses a kiss into Lyarra’s hair. “It was a dragon.” 

Rhaegal screeches, before he finds the sky again and begins circling Winterfell. Sansa cannot help the anxiety that finds her then, clawing up her chest as she wonders how easy it would be for the beast to open his mouth and rain fire over them all. Sansa holds Lyarra tighter, then, and waits for the horses she sent to return him to her. 

He comes on a black steed, dressed in riding leathers and dragon armour – red, and black, and _grey._ Hiding his black locks is a wolf helm, with twisting scales on it and Sansa wonders who was behind such a design, for she knows it would not be Jon. Sansa’s breath leaves her at the sight of him. It feels like a dream, to see him ride through the gates of Winterfell once more, and yet this time he is older – more scars, more lines, and more pain. 

When Jon’s eyes find her, they light up and his smile consumes his face. Sansa thinks if pain were a person, it would be Jon – for he seems to have been trapped in its cage for so long that when happiness graces his face, it is a sight to behold. 

Everyone is in the courtyard, so Sansa prays that he will not make a scene. Lyarra tugs at her braid, uninterested in it all, and Sansa presses her ears to her ear as she whispers, “Look.” 

The courtyard descends into bows, but Sansa remains upright – her arms tightening around her daughter. 

“Who is it, Mama?” Lyarra whispers, becoming shy at the sight of him. 

“His name is Jon,” Sansa whispers back, smiling as demurely as she can as Jon dismounts and comes towards them. 

“He looks like me.” 

Sansa’s heart soars, and she nods. “Yes, he does.” 

“My Queen,” Jon says, removing his wolf helm and pushing back his sweat filled hair. He passes it to his squire, before he goes to his knee before her, surprising Sansa. “I thank you for your reception, and hospitality.” 

“My King,” Sansa says, smiling broadly as she outstretches her hand to him and pulls him up. “Welcome back to Winterfell.”

Jon smiles brightly, before his grey eyes move to Lyarra in uncertainty and nervousness. Sansa had known every part of him, and so she knew he’s nervous, which made her only smile more. _Jon, the Prince that was promised and the vanquisher of the others, scared of a girl of but two,_ Sansa thinks.

“This is Princess Lyarra of Winterfell,” Sansa murmurs, smiling as Lyarra digs her face deeper into her mother’s hair. “Who is a shy little girl, at the moment.”

“Lyarra,” Jon echoes, awed. “Hello, Lya.” 

Lyarra looks up then, wide eyed at the sound of her nickname. Jon smile seems to broaden, if even possible, but Lyarra looks puzzled at him and her eyebrows furrow. “That is my name from Mama. How do you know that?” 

“Your Mama has told me an awful lot about you,” He says, smiling. “My mother was called Lya as well, you know.” 

Lyarra looks to him, puzzled. “What was her name?” 

“Lyanna.”

“Oh,” Lyarra says. “But that is not my name. It is like it.” 

“Yes,” Sansa says, smoothing her curls with her hand as she stares at their daughter. _I have dreamt a thousand times of our family, and now it is no longer a dream_. “Yes, it is. Come, we should head into the Keep. Are you hungry?” 

 

* * *

 

“She is amazing.” 

Sansa smiles as she looks to where Jon is looking – the sight of Lyarra picking flowers with Ghost by her side meeting her. “Yes, she is but she shall be shy for a little while, I think.”

Jon stares at her with a faraway look, his face indescribable. “I have missed out on so much.”

Sansa cannot lie to him, so she nods and says, “Yes.”

“I did not want to,” Jon says, staring at her straight in the eyes. “I never wanted to miss out on anything of hers, or yours.” 

Sansa purses her lips, and calls to Lyarra. “Sweetheart! Come away from the pond, please!” 

Lyarra looks up to where her mother sits, beneath the weirwood, and giggles as she runs towards them. She launches herself into Sansa’s lap, a broad smile on her lips as her wild curls go into Sansa’s face. Sansa’s locket finds itself in Lyarra’s hands as she studies it, as she always had, and Sansa grins, pushing back her daughter’s hair.

“Gods, my girl, your hair needs to be brushed,” Sansa says with a giggle, tickling her daughters small body as she writhes around in her lap. “Did you allow Jeyne to brush your hair?”

“I don’t like it,” Lyarra said, tugging at her hair. “It hurts.” 

Sansa laughs, and runs her hands through her daughter’s knotty curls. “You know, my darling, Jon has a dragon.” 

Lyarra’s eyes light up, and she looks to Jon. “Really?” 

Jon nods, grinning at her excitement. “His name is Rhaegal.” 

“And he fly?” 

“Yes.” Jon chuckles. “Very high indeed.” 

“I want dragon,” Lyarra says, and Sansa giggles. 

“You cannot have a dragon, my girl,” Sansa says, tickling her once more. “You are a wolf, not a dragon.” 

“But w-woof can’t fly, Mama.”

Sansa looks to Jon, and wonders if that is true. 

“I suppose you’re right.” Sansa laughs, and forces Lyarra to stand. “Now come on – let’s show Jon how fast you can run.” 

“Why?” 

Sansa grins, pushing herself up. “Because I am going to … _catch you_!” 

Sansa runs after Lyarra, who giggles loudly as she runs as fast as her little legs can take her. Sansa catches Lyarra in her arms, spinning her around as her daughter laughs. Sansa looks over her shoulder, and see’s Jon staring at her, longing on his face. She smiles, ever so slightly, and he nods. 

For just a moment, they can pretend they are a family. 

For just a moment. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sansa sighs after they are done, holding Jon to her. 

He is panting in her ear, and she still is on the high of her peak.

“Thank you,” He whispers. “Thank you.” 

“For what?” She asks, propping herself up to look at him. 

“For her,” Jon says, cupping her cheek. “For you. For us.”

 

* * *

 

Sansa watches Jon and Lyarra from the window of her chambers. 

Her daughter is atop Jon’s shoulders, and the sight of it warms her heart. 

“Do not grow used to it,” Old Nan says, her voice sharp. 

Sansa does not tear her eyes from the sight of them as she replies, “Can I not simply look at my daughter with her father?” 

“And do not call him that.” 

Sansa rolls her eyes, turning to look at Old Nan. “Why not, Nan? That is her father.”

“He is the King before he is her father,” Old Nan says. “He is _her_ husband, before he is her father.”

“Nan, please,” Sansa says, turning back to the window and watching Jon making Lyarra laugh. “I know that. But in my Kingdom, he is not her husband or her King. In my Kingdom, he is only Lyarra’s father.” 

“Your mistake, my Queen,” Nan says, “is to think that boundaries or Kingdom make any difference to the vows made before the Gods. Jon is hers, as she is his, and you are not.” 

Sansa clenches as her bodice, before she turns to stare at the frail woman. “Are you doing this just to torment me?”

“No, my Queen,” Nan says. “I am doing this to help you.”

Sansa scurries down the stairway after her conversation, anger coursing through her at Nan’s words. She found them in the stables, near the horses, where Lyarra was showing Jon her pony and Jon was doing the best to keep up with her rambling, disconnected words.

Jon sees her after a while, and smiles. Yet the smile falls flat when he sees her expression. “Is everything alright, Sansa?” 

“I-“ Sansa looks to where Lyarra is standing, and smiles. “Are you having a good time, Lya?” 

She nods, enthusiastically. “Yes, Mama.” 

“That’s good,” Sansa says, before she smooths over daughter’s hair and motions to Jack. “Go inside with Jack, why don’t you? Go find Ser Jaimie.” 

Lyarra nods, running off, and Sansa puts her hand to her chest as she feels her heart hammering in her chest. 

“What is it?” Jon asks, stepping forward. “What’s the matter?”

“What are we doing Jon?” Sansa asks, near hysterical. “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

Sansa cannot hold it in then, for the tears overflow onto her cheeks and her sobs are loud. Jon is quick to embrace her, holding her to his warm chest as he whispers sweet nothings, and tries to console her. 

“What is it?” He asks, pressing kisses to her face. “What is it, my love?” 

“This … we’re … this is just going to hurt,” She manages to stammer out. “It’s going to Hurt to see you leave.” 

Jon sighs, cupping her cheeks and brushing away the tears. “I know. I know.” 

Sansa nearly wails. “Then why are we doing it?”

“Because I love you enough to put up with the pain,” Jon whispers. “Because I love you." 

She wonders if that is enough.

 

* * *

 

“Papa!”

Sansa hears the word, and feels cold. 

“Don’t call him that,” Sansa snaps at her daughter, holding her by the arms with wide eyes. “You must never call him that, do you understand?” 

Lyarra looks at her for a moment, before her lips begin to tremble and she lets out a large cry.

“Do not cry, little wolf,” Nan says, taking her from Sansa and rubbing her back. 

Sansa’s hands tremble, and she feels guilt instantly. She turns to Nan, and holds out her hands. “No, Nan, give her to me.”

Sansa wraps her daughter in her arms, and offers quiet apologies – whispering that it was ok, and that Mama had simply been mad.

“Silly Mama,” Lyarra hiccupped. “Silly, silly Mama.” 

“Yes,” Sansa says, wiping away the tears on her daughters face. “Yes, Mama is very silly. But you must not call Jon Papa, do you understand? It … it is a secret, one for you and me and Jon, but for no one else.” 

“Ok.” 

Sansa presses a kiss to her daughter’s head, and feels tears on her cheeks. “Ok.” 

When Lyarra is settled for her afternoon nap, Sansa goes in search of Jon. She does not find him in the Godswood, or in the stables, but in his bedchambers where he is holding a letter.

“Jon!” 

Sansa slams the door to his bedchamber, her eyes narrowing. “Have you told Lyarra that you are her father?” 

Jon’s eyes are wide as he turns to her. “What?” 

“Did you tell Lyarra you are her father?” Sansa snarls, throwing down her gloves. “For if you did, you have completely gone behind my back and misled my child!” 

“Misled?” Jon asks, squinting down at the letter. “Sansa, what-“ 

“She is two years old, Jon, and she cannot know that you are her father,” Sansa snaps, her cheeks reddening in anger. “As much as we both would have liked for it to be different, it is not, and I need to protect her. And protecting her means she cannot know you are father yet – not when she treats secrets like announcements and has your eyes.” 

“Sansa …” Jon breathes, his eyes on the letter in his hands. 

“She cannot call you Papa because she does not know what the consequences of that word would mean,” Sansa says, crossing the room and pressing her hand to her mouth. “Gods, you’ve made me so angry, I want to hit you.”

He is silent. 

Sansa rounds on him, confused. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

His eyes are on the letter.

Sansa calms herself, and looks to the letter. “What is it, Jon?” 

“Daenerys is pregnant.” 

The pain is Ramsays knives, cutting into her skin. The pain is Joffrey’s dogs, doing their bidding. The pain is the bite of Ramsays dogs, tearing at her skin. The pain is the sight of her father’s blood of the steps of Baelor. The pain is the thought of her mother, whose throat had been cut to the bone. The pain is Lyarra’s birth, ripping through her and overcoming all else.

Sansa has known pain; she supposes she had known ore pain than most, and perhaps her skin is evident of that. For all the physical scars she bore, there were ten that existed on her heart. They were named for people she loved, and lost – her mother, and father, Robb, and Bran, and Rickon too. These scars gaped and bled once, but now they were simply scars. 

And yet Jon was a gaping wound to her heart. She felt as if she would bleed until there was no blood left, and would collapse in its pool. She remembers, after all, how much blood one’s body has. _Father had so much blood,_ Sansa remembers, _so much so that it didn’t stop coming from his neck – not even after they had thrown his body to the floor._

 Sansa wonders how much pain one can take, and if it will ever end. Sansa thinks of her father then, whose sister had been abducted and whose brother, and father were burned. Sansa thinks of her father, who went to Dorne to find his sister and instead found a Corpse and a secret.

Sansa thinks of her father, who lied to his mother to protect his sisters child, and who suffered the consequences for the rest of his life. She thinks of him, and his kind eyes, and kind smile, and kind words, and wonders how someone so good could suffer so much.

 _They took his head, for the fun of it,_ Sansa thinks, _for no reason other than a show of their strength._

 _Mayhaps I am like my father_ , Sansa thinks, _whose pain never ended._

“Sansa,” Jon says, his eyes boring into hers. “Please … say something.” 

But she cannot. 

Her words are locked in the river of pain she is drowning in, and so are her tears. 

Jon takes a step forward, but Sansa retreats – her eyes focusing on the letter. Sansa knows she should say something, but the only words she can think of are ‘why’. But she cannot ask that question, because she is not the wife – she is only the mistress, and she cannot feel the betrayal she so wishes to feel. 

 _It is an odd thing_ , Sansa thinks, _to love a man that is not yours._ For she wants to scream, and yell, and hit him, but she cannot. She wants to scream betrayal, and sob at his indiscretion, but she cannot. For she is not his wife – not even his Queen – but only his mistress. _How can a mistress feel betrayal at her lovers wife becoming pregnant with his child? With his true born child?_  

“Well,” Sansa chokes out, feeling sick rise in her throat, “congratulations.” 

Sansa flees from his bedchamber, choking on her tears as she seeks out the only place she knows she will find comfort. The crypts are not somewhere she loves to go, but it is the only place she can see her father and she needs her father. 

The statues face is not like she remembers, but is simply a bearded man whose bones  lay beneath him. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Sansa whispers. “Papa, I don’t know what to do.”

Sansa cries, surrounded by the ghosts of her family, and wonders when this pain will end.

Jon comes to her that night. 

“Sansa … I’m sorry.” 

“You should not be sorry,” Sansa whispers, shaking her head. “You should not be sorry.” 

“But I am,” He says. “I … I don’t know what to say. I can explain what happened-“ 

“She is your wife,” Sansa says, clasping at the doll her father had gifted her, all those years ago. “You should have children with your wife.” 

“Please-“ 

Sansa holds her hand up, and bites down on her lip. “I told you to be with her, and you listened. I told you to keep her, when you were in the South, and you did. It is not your fault-“ 

“You’re lying,” Jon says, shaking his head as panic dawned on his face. “You’re lying to me, Sansa. Please, please don’t lie. I can’t stand it when you lie to me.” 

Sansa rounds on him, her blue eyes blazing. “Ok, then. Who am I to you, Jon?”

“What?” 

“Who am I to you?” Sansa repeats, looking to his leather jerkin and his modest dress. “Who am I, Jon? Am I your Queen, or am I your whore? Am I your love, or your mistress?” 

“Sansa-“ 

Sansa holds her hand up, and looks to the ground, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I told you to be with her, but I- I didn’t know how much it would hurt.” 

He steps forward, his hand twitching as it reaches out for her but she steps out of his grasp. His eyes hold his misery, and he whispers, “I’m sorry.” 

Sansa closes her eyes, his apology ringing through her ears like a curse. “Stop apologising. You did as I asked, and I suffer because of it. It is my fault. It is all my fault.”

“Sansa.” Jon sighs. “I did not want any of this to happen.”   

Sansa blinks away her tears, thinking of Ramsay, and the battle, and then the love afterwards, before it all unravelled. Sansa turns away from him, and inhales the scent of pine and snow – _his smell –_ before she realises this is the end.

 _It will kill me if I keep doing this,_ she thinks, tears escaping her. _It’s killing me._

Sansa wipes at her face, and sighs. “Seeing your child after it’s just been born is the most amazing feeling you shall ever get, Jon. You feel love, and awe, and gratitude, all you may want to do is hold this small person tightly to you. When Lyarra was born, she became my sun, and my moon; my stars and my seas.” Sansa turns to him, and lets the tears crawl down her cheeks. “Your child with Daenerys will be beautiful, and you should … you should be there for it. For all of it.”

Realisation overcame Jon’s face, and he steps forward, panicked. “No, Sansa, _please_ -“ 

“I will not be responsible for another fatherless child,” Sansa chokes over words, and wipes at her face, “and I will not allow myself to be hurt like this, again and again.” 

“Sansa, I _love_ you-“ 

“AS I LOVE YOU!” Sansa screams, her hands clenching at the wood of the vanity. “Do you not think this causes me pain? Do you not think that every time I look at you I feel sick to know that you are not mine? Do you not think that I have spent hours, days, _weeks_ thinking about how we can be together? We married beneath a weirwood – in the eyes of the Old Gods, we are man and wife, but to the world I am your mistress.”

Sansa turns around, and steps towards him – cupping his cheek. “I love you, Jon. I have loved you for years. But I cannot … I cannot hurt like this anymore.”

“Please,” Jon whispers, his forehead meeting hers. “Please, Sansa, _please_.”

“I will never keep you from Lyarra,” She whispers, pressing a kiss to his lips. “And you shall always be welcome here but I cannot keep loving you, Jon. It will kill me.” 

“I- Sansa,” He cries, pulling her to him and crushing his lips to hers. “Sansa, I cannot-“ 

“You can,” She says as he peppers kisses to her face. “We have been stupid about this. We have been so stupid.” 

“Don’t do this – please, please don’t do this.” 

Sansa closes her eyes, inhales his scent once more, before she steps away. 

“I already have.” 

Jon cries when he bids farewell to Lyarra.

“I will see you soon,” He whispers, pressing a kiss to her head. “I will return soon.” 

He holds Lyarra to his chest in the safety of her nursery, whispering of his love for her. Sansa watches with a heavy heart, and a tight chest – doubting whether this was the right decision, again and again, as she watches a father say goodbye to his daughter. 

 _She will always have him,_ Sansa thinks, _it is I that will be gone from his life._

Jon looks to Sansa, and cups her cheek. “I will never stop loving you.”

Those are the last words he says to her before he leaves. 

 

* * *

 

 

Time is as fleeting as life itself.

Every day, Sansa is told of more news. One day it is that Arianne has birthed a son, a child they have named Daemon. The other is that the trial has begun, with Lord Edmure acting in her name. There is news every day – news of new life, and new death, and Sansa feels she cannot keep up with it. 

But it is a day when the sun is highest in the sky that she receives news she wished she did not.

“They have named her Alysanne,” Lady Mormont tells her, whispering into her ear as she holds an unsealed letter. 

Sansa cannot cry, not when she is in front of them. Instead, she smiles at Lady Mormont, and continues on with the day. 

But it is when Sansa is alone with Lyarra that she allows herself to cry, soft, soothing tears as her daughter sleeps. 

“You will never know this pain, my love,” Sansa whispers, smoothing over her girls hair. “You shall never know such pain.” 

Sansa finds herself once again in front of her father’s statue, the darkness around her as she sits on the dusty floor. 

“How did you do it, Father?” She asks, looking into his stone face. “How did you suffer so much, and live?”

But he gives no answer, as he never does.

“Every time I am pained, I think ‘next time, it shall be more bearable, for surely nothing can be more painful than this’,” She says, watching as the fire lights up his face. “But each time I’m hurt, the pain feels new, and so much worse than what it was before. Every time I think of him, every time I see him in her face, every time I so much as remember him, I feel like I am being tortured.”

“How could you watch him grow,” Sansa wonders, “when he looked exactly like her? How could you look at him, and not think of her, in that tower in Dorne? How could you love him, and know that his father killed her?”

Sansa looks to her hands, and sighs. 

“I don’t know how to live with it,” Sansa admits, her voice but a whisper as she lights his candle. “I don’t know how to love him, and not be his.” 

Sansa sighs, before she pushes herself from the floor and looks to her father’s stone face. She goes to her mother’s statue then, and a frown consumes her face at the sight of her. She is not as beautiful as she was, but of course no stone could be as beautiful as Catelyn Tully. 

“Hello Mother,” Sansa whispers, her hand coming to touch the collar of her gown before her hand goes to her neck. “You always had such a pretty neck.” 

Sansa lights her candle once more, before turning to where Robb stood. Sometimes, she cannot even remember what he looks like – his face but a blur in her mind, and his hair a vibrant auburn. _I remember he looked like me,_ she thinks as she stands before his stone version, and sighs.

“You chose love,” Sansa says, glancing to where his wife’s bones rest. “And we all paid for it.”

Sansa wonders, as she stares at the statue of her brother, if it would be any different if Robb had chosen duty.

Sansa spends all night with the ghosts of her family, and only returns to Winterfell when the sun begins to rise. Sansa walks to the nursery, opening the door quietly. She stares at Lyarra as she sleeps, and brushes her daughter’s curls back as the sun pours into her daughters windows.

Lyarra blinks awake, and Jon’s grey eyes meet Sansa as she wakes. “Good morning, my darling wolf.”

Her daughter smiles, and Sansa feels a warmth that numbs the pain. 

For in her daughter’s smile, Sansa knows she will never find anything but happiness.


End file.
